The Argosy — page 239: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Remembrances of Constantinople. 22 high as to exhibit, between the tops of their boots and the fastenings of their trousers, bare legs. THE DERVISHES. If you have been to Constantinople, and have not seen the Dervishes perform their peculiar rites of devotion, you have seen nothing. These exhibitions are among the most curious, the most mysterious, and, possibly, mystical of all that are to be seen, not only in the East, but all over the wide world. The ceremonies are performed by two different orders of religionists, in their respective houses or convents, at opposite sides of the Bosphorus—the dancers at Pera, and the howlers at Scutari. They resemble each other only in their fanaticism, and in the gravity and earnestness with which they go through their frivolous and revolting parts. On our way to see the Dancing Dervishes we stopped to buy slippers, as it was suggested that it might not be desirable, even over our walking boots, to put on those to be had on hire at the entrance of the monastery, and that, moreover, we should require them in many other places we contemplated visiting. The Turks never tread on the floor of a mosque, nor any other sacred place, with the same shoes in which they have been walking elsewhere. The men either enter bare- footed, or put on slippers over their ordinary shoes. The women retain their clumsy, theatrical-looking yellow boots, which reach mid- way to the knees, and cast off the slovenly heelless slippers with which they go abroad. Asa Mussulman, when he prays, touches the ground with his knees, then with his hands, on the backs of which he rests his forehead, and as these “ flexions” are made at every recur- tence of the word “ Allah,” the precaution of not carrying into their temples the external dirt and mud is a wise one. At the hour for prayer, wherever he may be—on the house-top, in the street, crossing the desert, pacing the deck of a Western steamer—the poorest Mussul- man, if he have not a proper prayer-carpet or even a shawl at hand, will not “‘ make dirt” of himself by kneeling on the bare ground ; he will rather take off one of his garments, and, prostrating himself upon it, so perform his devotions. Accordingly, on reaching the door of the monastery, we put on the slippers of purity, and entered an octagonal building, where the dancing ceremony had just commenced. In a large flat-roofed chamber we heretics were placed amid a crowd of believers under a low gallery, which seemed to stifle us. This gallery, having a thick latticed screen, was appropriated to Turkish ladies, but a small portion of it, opposite to us, was open, and occupied by a band of musicians, and a Dervish, who read aloud, ina VOL. XXII. a comidbooks.conn