There is a mosque on the outside of the city which people visit on certain days to see the howling dervishes go through their peculiar form of worship. This mosque consists of four square walls with a dome. It is whitewashed within, and bare and rude and old. The sunlight enters it through square holes cut in the dome, and beats upon thirty or forty men who stand in a semicircle facing the East. They are of all sorts, from Arabs of the desert with long hair and wild eyes, to fat, pleased-looking merchants from the bazars, and the beggars and water-carriers of the streets. Around them on chairs are the tourists and the residents, like the spectators at a play rather than the guests of a religious sect watching a religious ceremony. Most of the men wear their hats, and some of the women take careful notes and make sketches. They reminded me of medical students at a clinic when a man is being cut up. An archdeacon from one of our Western cities wore his hat, to show, probably, that he disapproved of the whole thing; but as he used to eat with his knife while on board the _Fulda_, his conduct in any place was not to be considered. The priest recites something from the Koran, and the men repeat it, moving their bodies back and forward as they do so with gradually increasing rapidity. What they may be saying is quite unintelligible, and the chorus they make resembles that of no human sound, but rather the gasping or panting of an animal. It is to the visitor absolutely without any religious significance; all that is impressive about it is its horrible earnestness and its at times repulsive results. As the voice of the priest grows more accentuated the bodies of the men swing farther and lower, until their hair sweeps the floor, and their eyes, when they throw their bodies back, are on a level with those of the spectators. A drum beats in quickening time to the voice of the priest and to the gasps of the dervishes, and a flute playing a weird accompaniment seems to mock at their fierce grunts and breathings. It was one of the most unpleasant exhibitions I ever witnessed, and affected one's nerves to such a degree that several of the women had to leave. The eyes of the men rolled in their sockets, and their lips parted, and through their clinched teeth came fiercer and louder gasps, until the chorus of sound reached you like the quick panting of an engine as it draws out of a station. The sweat ran from them like water from a sponge, and the veins stood out on their faces, showing in congested knots beneath the skin. Some of them groaned, and others shrieked and cried out, "Allah! Allah!" This acted like the strokes of a whip on the others, who rocked more and more violently, and swung themselves almost off their feet. Then, as the music grew fainter the motion of the bending bodies grew less vigorous and finally ceased, and the men stood rigid, some apparently unmoved and unconcerned, and others turning and reeling in a fit.