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The mosque Osmanie is superb, but it is less than 
the others. 
At a quarter of an hour's walk from the city, in the 
direction of the port, there is a pretty palace belong- 
ing to the Sultan, and a little farther on is the suburb 
of Eyoub, situated on the bank of the port. 
The name of this suburb is taken from a holy dis- 
ciple of the Prophet, revered as the patron of Con- 
stantinople, whose bones were miraculously found 
upon the spot. It is in the mosque dedicated to him 
that they gird the sabre on the new Sultan, a ceremony 
equivalent to the coronation of the monarchs of Eu- 
rope. 
The entrance of this temple being absolutely for- 
bidden to the infidels, there does not exist any des- 
cription of it. I paid a visit to it. After having tra- 
versed an irregular court, I entered the edifice, which 
is composed of a court in the centre, a mosque upon 
the right, and a chapel upon the left, in which is the 
sepulchre of the saint These three parts of the edi- 
fice are incrusted from top to bottom with the richest 
marbles on the walls, as well as on the pavements. 
The court is a parallellogram, surrounded with 
arches on the three sides. There are two poplars in the 
middle, which are extremely large, and the branches, 
which shade the whole court, produce a charming ef 
feet. 
The mosque resembles all the imperial mosques at 
Constantinople, that is to say, it is like that of St, 
Sophia, composed of a large cupola, upon a square, 
but it has two peculiarities that distinguish it; the first 
is, that the pillars placed at the angles of the square 
are extremely slender; that the cupola is supported by 
six large cylindric pillars, on three sides of the square. 
