The Argosy — page 240: what you’re looking at

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

226 . Remembrances of Constantinople. nasal, monotonous tone, passages from the Koran. In the centre 0 the chamber, divided from the spectators by a balustrade, about twenty of the fraternity were, one by one, turning slowly in a circle to the mournfal accompaniment of the shrill pipes and drums of the musi- cians above. The dancers wore flower-pot shaped felt hats, and ample brown cloaks, confined to the waist by leather belts. This turning was but an initiatory proceeding, for by degrees the cloaks were discarded, the wild plaintive music of the flutes, with which the drums kept up a monotonous tom-tom, increased in speed, and the dancing, or rather spinning, began in earnest. The dancers, in white jackets crossed over the breast, and full expanding, bell-like petticoats, reaching to the ankle, moved with grace and extreme celerity. It was quite astonishing to see how they kept a perfect circle, no one ever touching even the hem of his neighbour's garment. Each man’s arms were stretched out at full length, and slightly elevated, one hand having the palm turned to the ground, the other to the ceiling. Their feet were bare. One never left the ground, the heel serving as a pivot on which the body turned. What the other foot did towards the spinning I in vain endeavoured to discover. , Whiist the dancing was going on, an old sheikh, in a green robe and turban, showing that he claimed to be descended from the family of the Prophet, sat in a recess near the “ Kiblah,” or altar, chanting the “Fatchah,” or Mussulman creed, as he passed bead after bead through his fingers. The name of Allah occurring very often, and it being - necessary at every repetition of it to make a “flexion” to the ground, the old man was constantly swaying himself backwards and forwards. All the sons of Islam present did the same, and thé monotonous movement becoming infectious, I too could not help swaying myself to and fro until I became quite giddy. The wild swirl of the flutes every minute became more rapid and exciting, the dancers turned quicker and quicker, until they seemed to spin past us, and the whole scene swam before me in sickening confusion. Then gradually the music died away in melancholy minor cadences, the -pace of the dancers slackened, and one by one, after resuming - their -brown mantles, they seated themselves, as if in meditation, round the central enclosure. The reader in the gallery again intoned some: sentences from the Koran, the Dervishes by turns walked up to the old sheikh, bent their heads to the ground, kissed his hand, received: his berredic- diction, and departed to their shops, or whatever else may have been their daily avocations. The exhibition of the Howling Dervishes is of a very different and far less pleasing character. Under a low gallery, which, from being almost dark, added to the unpleasantness of everything, we were spectators of this- most uni and disgusting performance. The heavy, suffocating furnes of incekse, comicbooks.com