The Mevlevi--or dancing dervishes (the most celebrated of the thirty-two orders)--have a well-known fekkeh on the Grande Rue de Pera. We proceeded thither prepared to behold rapt, saintly countenances lit up by celestial visions. But our minds were quickly disabused of all such ideas. Alas! among dervishes as well the flame of faith “laps a dry wick,” and the celebrated holy dance appeared to me to be nothing more than a cold and formal theatrical performance. It is unquestionably both curious and interesting to watch them as they enter the circular mosque in single file, each one enveloped in a long dark mantle, with arms concealed and head bowed, to an accompaniment of savage music, monotonous and sweet, which resembles the sound made by the wind among the cypress trees of the Skutari cemetery, soothing one into a sort of waking slumber. And when they begin to turn, prostrating themselves two by two before the mihrab with dreamy, languid movements which arouse sudden doubts as to their sex: there is something fascinating too in the way in which, with a sudden rapid movement, they fling aside their cloaks and appear all in white, with long woollen skirts, and, opening their arms with an amorous gesture and inclining their heads to one side, abandon themselves one after another to the evolutions of the dance, as though pushed forward by an invisible hand, and when they all whirl around in the centre of the mosque together and at equal distances from one another, without diverging from their respective posts by so much as a hair’s breadth, as though each one were on a pivot, white, rapid, light, with waving, inflated skirts and half-closed eyes; and when with a sudden simultaneous movement, as though overpowered by some superhuman vision, they cast themselves upon the ground with a thundering cry of “Allah!” or when, commencing again, they bend low and kiss one another’s hands, then circle around once more, close to the wall, with a light, tripping step, between walking and dancing,--all of this, I acknowledge, makes a beautiful and entertaining performance, but the ecstasies, the transports, the transfigured faces, seen and described by so many enthusiastic travellers, I failed to discover. All I saw was a number of extraordinarily agile and indefatigable dancers, who went through their task with the most utter indifference, sometimes even with suppressed smiles. One young dervish was manifestly pleased at finding himself observed by an English girl in the gallery just opposite him, and I detected more than one in an attempt to bite instead of kiss his neighbor’s proffered hand, the other retaliating with a sharp pinch--the hypocrites! What struck me most was that every one of those men--and they were of all ages and conditions--possessed a grace and elegance of movement and pose which might well arouse envy in the breasts of many of the frequenters of our ball-rooms, and which I take to be a natural attribute of the Oriental races, due, no