"Their order has few rules, except of performing their fantastic rites every Tuesday and Friday. They meet in a large hall, where they all stand with their eyes fixed on the ground, and their arms crossed, while the imaun or preacher reads part of the Koran from a pulpit, and after a short exposition on what he has read, they stand around their superior, and tying their robe, which is very wide, round their waist, begin to turn round with an amazing swiftness, moving fast or slow as the music is played. This lasts above an hour, without any of them showing the least appearance of giddiness, which is not to be wondered at when it is considered they are used to it from their infancy. There were among them some little dervishes, of six or seven years old, who seemed no more disordered by that exercise than the others. At the end of the ceremony they shout out, 'There is no other god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet'; after which they kiss the superior's hand and retire. The whole is performed with the most solemn gravity." Lady M. W. Montague's _Letters_, vol. ii, p. 43.] The great reputation of this honest man having spread to the town from whence he had come, it touched the envious man so much to the quick that he left his own house and affairs with a resolution to ruin him. With this intent he went to the new convent of dervishes, of which his former neighbor was the head, who received him with all imaginable tokens of friendship. The envious man told him that he was come to communicate a business of importance, which he could not do but in private; "and that nobody may hear us," he said, "let us take a walk in your court; and seeing night begins to draw on, command your dervishes to retire to their cells." The chief of the dervishes did as he was requested. When the envious man saw that he was alone with this good man, he began to tell him his errand, walking side by side in the court, till he saw his opportunity; and getting the good man near the brink of the well, he gave him a thrust, and pushed him into it. This old well was inhabited by peris[17] and genies, which happened luckily for the relief of the head of the convent; for they received and supported him, and carried him to the bottom, so that he got no hurt. He perceived that there was something extraordinary in his fall, which must otherwise have cost him his life; but he neither saw nor felt anything. [Footnote 17: The word peri, in the Persian language, signifies that beautiful race of creatures which constitutes the link between angels and men.] He soon heard a voice, however, which said, "Do you know what honest man this is, to whom we have done this service?"