148 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



The high pews look uncomfortable, but are not so 

 in reality. Some of the seats double back on hinges 

 and form a high rest. If the occupant goes to sleep, 

 these sometimes turn down with a considerable noise. 

 This once took place close to where I happened to be 

 seated. The old man to whom it had occurred because 

 he had dozed off to sleep, being ashamed that such a 

 thing had been seen by a stranger, tried to delude 

 me with the idea that he had done it on purpose, and 

 insisted on my turning my pew down in a similar, 

 though more deliberate manner. To please him there- 

 fore I did likewise, as though it offered thus a more 

 convenient and comfortable chair. 



All night long the monks will continue at their 

 devotions, and when morning dawns the relics and 

 vestments will be shown him ; the former kept in 

 wonderful boxes and cages of mediaeval filigree work, 

 and treated by the monks with an odd mixture of 

 superstitious devotion and contemptuous familiarity ; 

 and he will gaze on the thousand-year-old mosaic 

 floors, on the rarely used throne of the Archbishop, 

 and the numberless small- pictures of the Byzantine 

 age of painting. Nowhere in Europe can such a 

 collection of goldsmith's work be found, as these relics 

 present. 



The traveller may, if he pleases, hold a continual 

 reception from morning till night. Unless he stations 

 his dragoman at the door, it will never be closed 

 for more than a few seconds. Occasionally he may 

 escape, but he will sometimes be found out and 



