stantinople; although the idea of taking part in their re-conquest never for an instant entered the imagination of even the boldest of the degraded Greeks. The men admired the hardy appearance of reckless daring impressed on the countenances of the Almugavars, and the ease with which they moved in their heavy armour; while the women could find no words to express their admiration of the noble presence of Roger himself and the manly beauty of Ximenes, as in full panoply, and managing their horses with the grace of practised cavaliers, they rode along the crowded thoroughfares.

At length they entered the Hippodrome, still a noble area, although its chief ornaments had perished in the destruction of the bronze statues by the Latins, from which not even the magnificent Apollo (that had so long borne the name of Constantine, and occupied the summit of what is now called the "burnt column") had escaped. From the Hippodrome, richly ornamented gates led to the court of the palace (called the Augusteum), on one side of

which were drawn up the Alan guards, under the command of their leader Georgius. These barbarian troops, originally of Scythian origin, are first mentioned in history as leaving the banks of the Kuban to assist the Emperor Aurelian in the invasion of Persia, which he was contemplating, when he was overtaken by the usual fate of the emperors of his day, and murdered by his own generals, in the midst of his own camp. The Alans were afterwards subdued by the Huns, and, mixing with the various nations which preyed upon the decay of the Roman empire, had finally settled on the northern bank of the Danube. A considerable body of them had been for some time in the service of the emperor, where they occupied the place and assumed the arms of the Varangian guards; and now, with their doubleedged axes on their shoulders, and ill concealed discontent on their countenances, awaited the arrival of a body of even fiercer warriors than themselves.

The Almugavars or Catalans were drawn up

on the opposite side, as no soldiers were admitted into the palace except the household troops, commanded by the Protospathaire; which body being of no particular nation, and highly favoured by the emperors, might be presumed to be faithful: in fact, they had no possible interest to be otherwise, as they were not sufficiently numerous to act the part of the Prætorians. The duties of the private apartments and the custody of the emperor's person were, as in eastern nations, entrusted to the Eunuch Guards.

The moment that Roger de Flor, his chiefs, and their immediate personal attendants, entered the body of the palace, the external gates were, in accordance with a custom universally observed in the declining days of the empire, closed behind them. This practice was so well known that its observance did not excite the smallest suspicion in the minds of the guests. Through hall and gallery, ante-rooms, corridors, and arcades, so extensive as to seem endless, Roger and his friends were ushered by the obsequious Greeks, the mailed tread and

clanking spurs of the western warriors contrasting strongly with the noiseless step and silken robes of their effeminate companions. At length, at the termination of a long gallery, a number of Ethiopian slaves, clothed in the costume which long custom had marked as their own, namely, loose white garments with ear-rings and armlets of gold, threw wide a pair of lofty folding-doors, and the Catalans found themselves in the presence of the emperors and their court.

One side of the long and lofty hall was occupied by the household guards, richly armed and gorgeously appareled; but in their mail shirts and flowing robes bearing an appearance far more Saracenic than European; indeed, it was a singular fact that the more closely the person of the emperor was approached the more distinct became the affectation of Eastern habits and costumes.

At the opposite side were ranged, also in rich dresses, the personal attendants of the emperor and his courtiers; while at the upper end of the hall, upon a raised dais of three

steps, and shadowed by a costly canopy, were the high-backed chairs, surmounted by golden eagles, which were used as thrones by the emperors of the house of Paleologus, for at no previous period were the insignia of old Rome more proudly displayed than now that her mighty empire was tottering to its fall. The golden tree with its singing birds, and the two lions of gold, which used to imitate the roarings of the forest king-toys which had pleased the childish fancies of the Emperor Theophilus

-were no longer to be seen; nor did the throne, apparently instinct with motion, rise to the ceiling, as it once had done, to strike amazement into the mind of the barbarian Luitprand; still the noble proportions of the hall, with its double row of windows on each side, and the red porphyry columns supporting the richly carved gallery which ran round the whole, all rendered doubly imposing by the enormous quantity of gold, painting, mosaic, and precious marble,-combined to form a magnificent display, especially to eyes accus