The interior seemed smaller than I had expected, but it is very large. The Christian decorations of the interior walls and ceilings were covered with whitewash by the Turks when they turned the Church into a mosque, but in places the crosses and other designs and emblems are beginning to show through. The Turks have also added four minarets, one at each corner, and when we got there the muezzin was up in one of them calling prayer time. The cut at the top of this paper shows St. Sophia. The other day when I was ashore the weather was fine, but it is the only fine day we have had since we have been here.
Today is cold and raw and cloudy.
Yesterday we shifted our berth to a place farther inshore. Now we are close to shore, about half way between Ylidiz Kiosk and Dolma Bagtche. This was done to get out of the very swift current which flows through the mid-channel in the Bosporus. They did that to save the sultan's life, as he had been condemned to death by the Kemalists. It made quite a noise.