On that one night of the year the Sultan goes to prayer outside of his palace. The state with which he does so is a sight to be seen, being a survival of a curious corollary of the tradition of the day. An old custom made it obligatory upon the Sultan to take a new wife on the Night of Power, in the hope that, as the divine gift of the Koran had come down on that night to Mohammed, so to his Caliph would heaven send an heir. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, therefore, the imperial progress to the mosque partakes of the nature of a gala procession. This was particularly so in the time of Abd ül Hamid, who devoutly maintained the customs of his fathers. I happened to see the last of the processions with which he went out on the Night of Power. The short avenue leading from Yîldîz Palace to the Hamidieh mosque was lined with arches and loops of light, the mosque itself was outlined with little oil-lamps, and the dip beyond was illuminated by Arabic texts and architectural designs. The effect was fairylike against the dark background of the harbour and the city, twinkling with the dim gold of far-away masts and minarets. While the crowd was smaller than at the ordinary Friday _selamlîk_, the police precautions were even stricter. But Turkish police have their own way of enforcing regulations. I remember a young man in a fez who approached the mosque too closely. A gorgeous officer went up to him: “My bey, stand a little down the hill, I pray you.” The young man made an inaudible reply, evidently an objection. The gorgeous officer: “My brother, I do not reprimand you. I pray you to stand a little down the hill. It is the order. What can I do, my child?” The young man stood a little down the hill. Presently other young men came, to the sound of music, their bayonets glittering in the lamplight. Some of them were on horseback, and they carried long lances with red pennons. They lined the avenue. They blocked up the cross streets. They surrounded the mosque. Before the last of them were in place the Palace ladies, spectators of all pageants in which their lord takes part, drove down and waited in their carriages in the mosque yard. For some of them too, possibly, this was an anniversary. Finally, the voice of the _müezin_ sounded from the ghostly minaret. In his shrill sweet minor he began to chant the _ezan_—the call to prayer. Then bands broke into the Hamidieh march, fireworks filled the sky with coloured stars and comets’ tails, and the imperial cortège poured from the palace gate—a mob of uniforms and caparisons and big white wedding lanterns, scintillating about a victoria drawn by two superb white horses. The man on the box, magnificent in scarlet and gold, was a more striking figure than the pale, bent, hook-nosed, grey-bearded man in a military overcoat behind him, who saluted in response to the soldiers’ “_Padisha’m chok yasha!_” The procession wheeled into the mosque yard, and majesty entered the mosque.