I did my utmost to save the religious honour of the honest Osmanlis, and if I was obliged occasionally to pronounce, with a blush on my cheek, the 'Pater, {185} peccavi,' I could not but internally felicitate the Turks on retaining, in spite of their being under the influence of a corrupt Islamism, many good qualities and fine traits of character, whereas their fellow-religionists, who boast that they are refreshing themselves at the very fountain of the pure faith, delight in nothing but the blackest mendacity, in hypocrisy, and in impositions. How often was I forced to witness one of the Khalka (circle) which devotees form by squatting down close to each other in a ring, to devote themselves to the Tevedjüh (contemplation), or, as the western Mahomedans call it, the Murakebe of the greatness of God, the glory of the Prophet, and the futility of our mortal existence! If you, a stranger, behold these people, with their immense turbans, and their arms hanging down folded upon their laps, sitting in their cramped position, you could not help believing them to be beings of a purer, loftier nature, who seek to cast from them the burden of clay, and adopt the full spirit of the Arabian saying-- 'The world is an abomination, and those who toil about it are dogs.' [Footnote 55] [Footnote 55: 'Ed dünya djifetun ve talibeha kilab.'] Look only more attentively, and you will not fail to perceive that many have, from deep reflection, fallen into deeper slumber; and although they begin to snore, like hounds after a hard day's hunting, beware how you breathe any reproach, or the Bokhariot will soon set you right with the observation, 'These men have made such progress, that even whilst they snore they are thinking of God and of immortality!' In Bokhara only the external form of the thing is required. {186} Each city has its Reïs, [Footnote 56] who, with a cat-o'-four-tails in his hand, traverses the streets and public places, examines each passer by in the principles of Islamism, and sends the ignorant, even if they be grey-bearded men of threescore years, for periods varying from eight to fourteen days, to the boys' school; or he drives them into the mosques at the hour of prayer. But whether, in the former case, they learn anything in school, or go to sleep there--whether, in the latter, they pray in the mosque, or are thinking how their daily occupations have been cut short,--all this is the affair of nobody whatever. The Government insists upon nothing but the external appearance; what lies within is known to God alone. [Footnote 56: Guardian of religion.]