His brow girt with the turban of sacred green—his distorted body enclosed within a dark wrapping vest of cotton—and his short, crooked legs covered with gaiters of coarse cloth—moved forward a humped and barefooted dwarf with a long gristled beard, whose thin skinny fingers grasped a pole much higher than himself; and who, after eyeing us with attention for a moment with a glance as keen and hungry as that of a wolf, sidled up close to the servant, and growling out “_backshich_,” with an interrogative accent, began to fumble amid the folds of his garment for the key of the tower; and at length withdrew it with a grin, which made his enormous mouth appear to extend across the whole of his wrinkled and bearded countenance. As I looked at him I thought of Quasimodo—the monster of Nôtre Dame could scarcely have been more frightful! Having carefully concealed his pole behind a pile of carpets, and flung back the narrow door of the minaret, this Turkish Quasimodo led the way up a flight of broken and dangerous stone steps, in perfect darkness, consoling himself for the exertion which we had thus entailed on him by an occasional fiend-like chuckle, when he observed any hesitation or delay on the part of those who followed him; and a low murmured commune with himself, in which the word _backshich_ was peculiarly audible. The stair terminated at a small door opening on the narrow gallery, whence the _muezzin_ calls The Faithful to prayers. The burst of light on the opening of this door was almost painful; nor is the sensation experienced when standing within the gallery altogether one of comfort. The height is so great, the fence so low, and the gallery itself so narrow, that a feeling of dizziness partially incapacitates the unaccustomed spectator from enjoying to its full extent the glories of the scene that is spread out before him, and which embraces not only the wide plain seen from the ruins of the Imperial Palace, but the whole chain of mountains that hem it in. After a great deal of stumbling, slipping, and scrambling, we again found ourselves beside the fountain of Oulou Jamè; and, on leaving the mosque, remarked with some surprise that its minarets are painted in fresco on the outside, to about one-fourth of their height.