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The Prince of India, Volume II

Chapter 9 COUNT CORTI TO MAHOMMED No.9

Word Count: 1423    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

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party as never before. Notaras, moved doubtless by Gennadius, induced them to suspect His Majesty and the Patriarch of conniving at the wonderful sermon of the monk Sergius; and, as the best rebuke in their power, the Brotherhood of the St. James' erected a Tribunal of Judgment in their monastery last night, and placed the preacher on trial. He defended himself, and drove them to admit his points; that their Church is not the Primitive Church of the Apostles, and that their Creed is an unwarranted enlargement of the two Articles of Faith left by Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. Yet they pronounced him an apostate and a heretic of incendiary purpose, and condemned him to the old lion in the Cynegion, Tamerlane, famous these many years as a man-eater.... My Lord should also know of the rumor in the city which attributes the Creed of Nine Words-'I believe in God, and Jesus Christ, his Son'-to the Princess Irene; and her action would seem to justify the story. Directly the meeting in Sancta Sophia was o

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oming from the east. Right in the angle formed by the intersection of the walls there is a gate, low, very strong, and always closely guarded. Passing the gate, I found myself in an enclosed field, the city wall on the east, wooded hills south, and the harbor north. How far the enclosure extends up the shore of the harbor, I cannot say exactly-possibly a half or three quarters of a mile. The surface is level and grassy. Roads wind in and out of clumps of selected shrubbery, with here and there an oak tree. Kiosk-looking houses, generally red painted, are frequent, some with roofs, some without. Upon examination I discovered the houses were for the keeping of animals and birds. In one there was an exhibition of fish and reptiles. But much the largest structure, called the Gallery, is situated nearly in the centre of the enclosure; and it astonished me with an interior in general arrangement like a Greek theatre, except it is entirely circular and without a stage division. There is an arena, like a sanded floor, apparently fifty paces in diameter, bounded by a brick wall eighteen or twenty feet in height, and from the top of the wall seats rise one above another for the accommodation of common people; while for the Emperor I noticed a covered stand over on the eastern side. The wall of the arena is broken at regular intervals by doors heavily barred, leading into chambers anciently dens for ferocious animals, but at present prisons for criminals of desperate character. There are also a number of gates, one under the grand stand, the others forming northern, southern and

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