At ten o'clock, A.M., I was awakened by my fellow-travellers, and accompanied them to the caravanserai of the Turning Dervishes. A somewhat lengthened residence in the northern provinces of Persia, where a Turkish idiom is spoken, had given me a tolerable fluency in that language, and I was thus enabled to act as interpreter to my friends. The cicerone of the hotel conducted us to a circular building situated in the midst of a small garden, whither was hurrying a crowd composed of Greeks, Armenians, and Turks. Having arrived at the vestibule, we took off our boots and confided them to the care of a man who kept a sort of depot for slippers, of which he hired out to each of us a pair. We then entered a large circular hall, lighted from above, in the centre of which was an oaken floor, waxed and polished with the greatest care, and protected by a balustrade. Around this arena were seated a number of spectators of all ages, country, and costumes, and exhaling a strong odour of garlic. The ceremony was commenced: for to the 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.