758 
DANCING DERVISES. 
if balancing the incumbent weight with difficulty. A set of 
persons called Bostangees, properly a corps of gardeners for the 
Seraglio, present a most ludicrous costume. They have two 
employments besides that of horticulture ; first, guarding the 
person of the sovereign ; second, seizing criminals, and dragging 
them to justice. But their beacon-heads, when seen from afar, 
ought to be sufficient warning to the latter objects to keep out 
of their way ; their caps being constructed of scarlet cloth, rising 
high in a cylindrical form, then suddenly making an acute 
angle to the front or rear, like the machine called a cow on our 
refractory chimneys. The dress of these men is richly em¬ 
broidered, and covered on the breast with lumps of embossed 
silver. Their daggers, or yaltagars, are also very splendid. The 
Armenians are distinguished by their turban, which is of a pear- 
form, and made of black fur ; the Jews, again, are designated 
by the cap peculiar to themselves. 
But one of the most extraordinary sights that I saw while in 
Constantinople and its environs, was a convent of dancing 
Dervises, of the order of Mevlevey. Their devotions are per¬ 
formed publicly, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and their mosques 
are the only ones open to Christians. That which I visited was 
not far distant from the English palace; and, accompanied by 
one of the dragomans of our embassy and Sedak Beg, with a 
couple of Janissaries in attendance, I witnessed the most sin¬ 
gular solemnity. The mosque is not very large; but of an 
octagon form, with a railed-off circle in the middle at some dis¬ 
tance from the wall; between which railing and the wall the 
spectators stand, and within the circle the devotional evolutions 
are performed. A gallery appears above, divided into partitions 
for the women ; a recess for the Sultan ; and a compartment for 
