Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . MOSQUE OF EL AZAR. 556 THE GREAT MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA. was everywhere chiseled out, and all the magnificent win-dows and mosaics were either broken or covered up withhideous yellow paint or plaster. Yet in spite of all thisvandalism of fanatical image-haters, St. Sophia retains itsancient glory and impressiveness to a large degree. Itsproportions are magnificently symmetrical. The dome, which hangs like ahuge substantial bub-ble in the air, it is im-possible to describewith any adjectivewhich the
Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . MOSQUE OF EL AZAR. 556 THE GREAT MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA. was everywhere chiseled out, and all the magnificent win-dows and mosaics were either broken or covered up withhideous yellow paint or plaster. Yet in spite of all thisvandalism of fanatical image-haters, St. Sophia retains itsancient glory and impressiveness to a large degree. Itsproportions are magnificently symmetrical. The dome, which hangs like ahuge substantial bub-ble in the air, it is im-possible to describewith any adjectivewhich the dictionaryfurnishes. The floor is nowcovered with prayerrugs, all of them point-ing toward Mecca, sothat the devout Mos-lem when he pros-trates himself on hisrug knows which wayto face, as he mumbleshis monotonous peti-tion. Not only for itspresent magnificence, however, is St. Sophia interesting,but because of its historic associations. Over this famouschurch, for many a century, has Moslem and Christianquarreled, and it bears within itself many a mark of thehands of its successive conqueror
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade189, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
