Grand winter excursions to the Azores, Madeira, the Mediterranean and the Orient . lethe eye is at once be-wildered and charmed bythe rich decoration. Thefirst stone of St. Sophia,or the Church of DivineWisdom, was laid in 502 by Emperor Justinian; ten thousandworkmen are said to have been employed upon the work,which cost no less than $5,000,000. To add to its splendors,the temples of the ancient gods at Heliopolis and Ephesus, atDelos and Baalbec, at Athens and Cyzicus were plundered oftheir columns. There are about four hundred different mosques in Con-stantinople, the most remarkable of wh

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Grand winter excursions to the Azores, Madeira, the Mediterranean and the Orient . lethe eye is at once be-wildered and charmed bythe rich decoration. Thefirst stone of St. Sophia,or the Church of DivineWisdom, was laid in 502 by Emperor Justinian; ten thousandworkmen are said to have been employed upon the work,which cost no less than $5,000,000. To add to its splendors,the temples of the ancient gods at Heliopolis and Ephesus, atDelos and Baalbec, at Athens and Cyzicus were plundered oftheir columns. There are about four hundred different mosques in Con-stantinople, the most remarkable of which besides the Sophia,is the Kutchuk Aya Sophia,the original model of thegreat church built for Jus-tinian. Here, according toMahometan tradition, Mes-siah appeared among theworshipers. The Church ofthe Saviour, with the mon-astery of the Chora, is a gemof beauty still, even in itsdecay, rich with mosaic ofthe fourteenth century, ofthe purest and most refinedstyle. The Mosque of Ahmed, light and graceful, its domeupheld by four enormous round pilasters, distinguished by six 26. ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE.

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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidgrandwintere, bookyear1894