illuminated, and the transformation was complete in the twinkling of an eye.
Then the old town and its new quarters were lighted up as magically. The mosques—St. Sophia, the Suleimanieh, Sultan-Ahmed, all the civil and religious edifices from Seraï Burnou as far as the hills of Eyoub, were crowned with many-coloured fires. Luminous verses were suspended from one minaret to another, tracing the precepts of the Koran upon the dark background of the sky. The Bosphorus, studded by the lanthorns carried by the caïques which were tossed about by the waves, scintillated as if the stars had fallen upon the water. The palace upon the margin, the villas on both the European and the Asiatic sides, Scutari, the ancient Chrysopolis, and its houses built up in amphitheatre form, by stages; presented only lines of fire which were reflected from the sparkling sea.
From the far distance resounded the notes of the tambourine, the lute, or guitar, the tabourka, the rebek, and the flute; mingled with the chanting of hymns and psalms of evensong, for the dying day. And at the summits of the minarets, the muezzins, in the call of three prolonged notes, sent over the city—the city now in festive array—the last summons to the evening prayer, which consists of one Turkish with two Arabic words, Allah, Hækk Kebir!
