After making an appointment with the old lady for the dancers to come to us on the following evening, we descended the hill and walked towards the principal mosque in the town.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Mosque—The interior of the building—The lamps of different-coloured crystal—The Turks engaged in prayer—Comparison between Christians and Mussulmans—Daravish Bey—A wonderful shot—Djerrid—A strange request—The chase—A Bosnian lady—Her costume—A side-saddle—Even their women go out hunting—Daravish Bey dressed for the chase—A long shot—The price of a horse's forage—Most servants rob their masters—A Russian officer—The Armenian schools—The girls' school—Perhaps you would like to ask the boys some questions?—An amateur setter of questions—Mr. Marillier of Harrow school.—A sum—The schoolboys of Yuzgat—A half-holiday.
On taking off our shoes at the entrance, we were at once admitted into a large building constructed in the form of a dome. Two vast circular halls leading the one into the other, were beneath the lofty ceiling. Stained glass windows, with infinitesimally small panes, allowed but little light to penetrate to the interior, which was carpeted with rich Persian rugs of many hues and fashions. Chains, descending from the centre of the building, supported a huge circular hoop of iron. From this were suspended a hundred lamps of different-coloured crystal. Two enormous wax candles, each as thick as a man's leg, and about seven feet high, were fixed in a corner of the building. They had been made to last a year, and had cost "tchok para"—a great many paras.
The attendant evidently thought that he should impress my mind with this announcement, and he uttered the word "tchok" in a way which no Englishman could imitate save when he is in the extreme agonies of sea-sickness. Forty or fifty Turks were lying on the floor, and seemed to be in no way disturbed by the entrance of Mr. Vankovitch and myself.
"Are there always as many people here?" I inquired.
"There are very few to-day," was the reply; "but at whatever hour you may enter, the faithful will be found praying to the All-powerful One who rules the Universe."
This, indeed, I subsequently discovered to be the case. No matter how early or late I might enter a mosque, there were always some men on their knees, praying to the Almighty; and whenever a service was going on, the mosques were invariably crowded.
"They pray more than Europeans do," said my companion, the engineer, as we quitted the mosque. "With us," he added, "the women throng the churches, the men are conspicuous by their absence; in Turkey you will hardly ever meet a man who is in the habit of absenting himself from his mosque. Indeed, a Mohammedan's superstitious feelings would not allow him to do so, even if he felt inclined; he would think that the Divine vengeance would at once pursue him to his destruction."
We now called upon a Turkish gentleman, Daravish Bey. Presently he left the room, and, returning, brought an old flint-gun, marked "London, 1802." He next suggested that we should join him in a shooting excursion, and, calling a servant, desired the man to bring in a falcon. This, Daravish Bey said, would be very useful, as, if we missed the partridges, the hawk would catch them for us.