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We returned to the great mosque, which we had visited on the evening of our arrival, and listened for some time to the voice of a mollah who was preaching an afternoon sermon to a small and hungry congregation. We then entered the court before the tomb of Hazret Mevlana.
We have been to see the Howling Dervishes, and I will endeavor to give you some idea of their performances. Crossing to Scutari in the steam ferryboat, we walked some distance till we reached the mosque, where the services were just commencing. The attendant who admitted us intimated that we must remove our boots and put on the slippers provided.
There is an inferior official of the mosque who keeps it clean, and reports to the Imaum absentees from public worship, goes round the villages to give notice of public prayer, assists at burials, and beats the great drum of the mosque. The Imaum appears to be the highest functionary, and performs what are regarded as the most sacred rites of Islamism.
A few buildings, however, attain to the dignity of two storeys. At the northern end of the town a group of fairly well-built houses occupy the river-front, and a distant view of the clusters of palm-trees, of the white walls, and the minaret of the mosque refreshes the weary traveller from Korosko or Shellal with the hopes of civilised entertainment.
Their religion has a real restraining influence and there is at present little immorality amongst them. A little further on in the camp one comes upon an improvised Mohammedan mosque. Five times a day a devout soldier calls the faithful to prayer, and on Friday about three-fourths of them come out to their voluntary service.
He had taken care to demolish everything which could be set on fire, reserving only a mosque and the tomb of his wife Emineh, whose phantom, after announcing an eternal repose, had ceased to haunt him. Beneath was an immense natural cave, in which he had stored ammunition, precious articles, provisions, and the treasures which had not been sunk in the lake.
He had ignored all his letters and had gone back to England without making any effort to communicate with him. This was certainly his dismissal. And if Margaret had gone also without leaving one word of comfort for him, he must draw the same conclusion from her silence. Tired out with walking through the narrow streets, he stood on the steps of a small mosque, whose doors were closed.
Not far from the column is a neat little mosque, whose countless towers and cupolas are ornamented with gilt metal balls, which glitter and glisten like so many stars in the heavens. It is surrounded by a pretty court-yard, at the entrance of which those who wish to enter the mosque are obliged to leave their shoes.
Then, said he, in the evening you must be at the mosque built by the caliph's lady on the banks of the Tigris, and stay there till one comes to call you, I agreed to what he proposed; and, after passing the day in great impatience, went in the evening to the prayer that is said in an hour and an half after sunset in the mosque, and there I staid after the people were gone.
He was a native of Brusa, and amassed a considerable sum of money. Near the gate of the mosque called Bab-es'-Salam, a few Arab Sheikhs daily take their seat, with their ink-stand and paper, ready to write, for any applicant, letters, accounts, contracts, or any similar document.
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