e music of a
barbarous orchestra, composed of small timbals and squeaking fifes,
accompanying some nasal voices, about twenty tall, bearded young men,
clad in long white robes, were waltzing gravely round an old man in a
blue pelisse. These men carried on their heads a thick beaver cap,
similar in form to a flower-pot turned upside down. Their white robes,
made of a heavy kind of woollen stuff, were so constantly bulged out
with the air that they seemed made of wood. With their arms extended in
the form of a cross, the left hand being somewhat more elevated than the
right, and their looks fixed upon the ceiling with a stupid stare, these
Dervishes continued to turn rapidly round upon their naked feet with
such regularity and impassibility that they seemed like automatons put
into motion by machinery.

Suddenly the music ceased, upon which the Dervishes threw themselves
simultaneously upon their knees, inclining their heads at the same time
to the ground. For several minutes they remained motionless in this
position, while some attendants threw a large black cloak over each,
upon which they again stood up and ranged themselves in a line. Upon
this the old man in the blue pelisse, who had hitherto sat motionless
upon his heels, began a plaintive nasal chant, to which his subordinates
responded in a roaring chorus; this finished, the crowd began to
disperse, and we returned to our hotel.

Besides the Turning Dervishes, there are also at Constantinople the
Howling Dervishes, who, instead of waltzing until they fall from
giddiness, continue to utter the most frightful shrieks, until they fall
upon the ground exhausted and foaming at the mouth. Historians have
accorded different origins to these singular and absurd exercises; for
my part, I am inclined to consider them as remnants of the furious
dances taught by the ancient people of Asia to the Corybantes.

The day after my arrival I embarked for Stamboul, the Turkish quarter,
in one of those long caicks which are as it were the hackney coaches of
Constantinople. The least oscillation is sufficient to upset these light
barks, which are impelled with inconceivable rapidity by two or three
fine light-looking Arnaouts, dressed in silken shirts. In two minutes,
having traversed the Golden Horn, passing through an immense crowd of
boats of every form, and ships of every nation, we disembarked upon a
landing-place even more dangerous than the caick, on account of its
slipperine