Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: wreaths or crowns of orange blossoms on their heads, and stood clasping each other's hands. In front of them was the bishop, who officiated ; behind them an old clerk held two lighted candles adorned with twisted bands of muslin. Two priests and several readers, standing in stalls, chanted at intervals. The day was terribly hot and the church pretty well filled with people. One kind lady friend occupied herself with fanning the bride, and at intervals an old man went up behind the happy couple, and removing first the bride's crown and then the bridegroom's, mopped their streaming faces with a handkerchief, replacing the orange blossoms after the performance of this kind office. Towards the conclusion of the ceremony the relatives and friends kissed first the Gospels, then the bishop's hand, and finally the newly married couple on both cheeks. When the service was over the people rushed out of church and formed a procession to conduct them to their home. This was headed by two fiddlers, a man with a clarionet, and two other men playing instruments resembling guitars, but struck with a quill instead of the fingers; and a curious noise this Bulgarian band made. On the Monday we left Varna by the Austrian Lloyd steamer ' Ceres' at 3 P.m., and early next morning, after a calm night's voyage, passed the ancient Cyanean rocks and entered the Bosphorus. We were not long in steaming down that enchanting stream ; we were soon abreast of the Castles of Europe and Asia, and a few minutes later, off the village of Candelli, the distant view of Constantinople burst upon us, the dome and minarets of St. Sophia rising above the green cypresses of the Seraglio gardens. At 8 A.m. we cast anchor in the Golden Horn. CHAPTER III. Costantynoble is a full fayr Cytee, and a gode and a wel walled...