Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-07-26
LIFE IN TURKEY.
ashi-Bszouk-The sultan's Fire Depart.
ment.
o.s. stoddard in San Francisco Chronicle,

q. 8. Stoddard in San Francisco Chronicle,
The city of the Sultan has three
Sundays a week; so also have most
cities in the East. One observes this
to a vast degree in the bazars and
market places. On Friday your Mos
lem goes to mosque; he shuts up
shop and gives himself to prayer and
meditation, to coffee and the narglich
among the tombs of his ancestors, or
on the shores of the Sweet Waters.
On Sunday, which is Sabbath, the
Jews put up their shutters, visit the
synagogue and enjoy the gossip of
the cafes. On Sunday the Christians
go to mass, and seek some rational
recreation in their best clothes there
after so that for three days the bust
ness ofthe town is somewhat checked.
The mosques are never crowded; peo-
pie are continually coming and going,
dropping their slippers at the thresh.
old and advancing in their stocking
feet toward the prayer niche where
:hey PROSTATE themselves, stand,
kneel, turn their heads to right and
left and raise their hands in fashion
that is so mechanical one can hardly
keep serious until the sight has ceased
to be a novelty. There are mosques
in STEAMBOAT that rival St. Sophia in
magnitude and splendor. The mosque
of Suleiman is considered one of
the most glorious monuments of Os-
manli architecture. Several of the
imperial mosques are rightly endowed.
Mohammedan charity begins at
mosque, and all good Mussulmans are
very much at home in their houses of
prayer. The fourteen great mosques
are built upon the self-same plan. The
mosques measure 225x205 feet, and
are inclosed on the entrance side by
a forecourt, and in the rear by gar
den or cemetery.
Besides these imperial mosques
there are about go others, built by
individuals of interior rank, and 800
or more chapels, some of which are
chiefly frequented by women. The
Doves Mosque, or the Mosque of Ba-
iazet III, in STEAMBOAT, has for me a
special charm. The building wss
completed in 1906. The court is ex-
ceedingly beautiful. You enter by
gates deliberately decorated in arabas-
que; the cloister that surrounds the
court is inclosed by range of col
umns of porphyry and verde antique,
with capitals of white marble orna-
mented in arabasque. In the center
of the court is marble fountain I'M
der canopy, and sheltered by a clus-
ter of fine trees AS you enter the
court you hear the roar of wings, and
for the moment the air is darkened
with the sudden flight of myriads of
doves, These birds, the offspring of
a pair purchased of poor woman by
Sultan Bajazet, and presented to the
mosque, are as sacred as was the ibis
of old. A grave and reverend fellow
with a huge turban sits under the
cloister, and sells grain to the faithful
and the tickle. The former feed the
doves for charity, the latter for fun.
While the fountain is knee deep with
swarming birds and the trees clogged
| with them, and all the caves of the
cIoister lined and even the high gall
leries of the slender minarets not I'M
visited by these feathered dervishes,
you throw a handful of wheat into
the court, and like a thunder-cloud
the whole tribe swoops upon you
with the rush and roar of storm.
They crowd one another, and heap
themselves together and stand on
their heads in their eagerness to
get morsel OF grain. In moment
some one enters the court. and
the birds take flight, stirring the
wind in the cloister and filing the air,
with soft, floating down. ] almost
envy the placid pleasure that the
granger in the turban takes, for his
way is easy and his burden light, and
those doves are such delightful absur-
dities! There is his neighbor against
the next column, who sells rosaries
and perfumes, and there is also the
fellow at the gate, who cries 'Sherbet'
and clashes his brazen cups till they
ring like cymbals, and there are loung-
ers- from dawn to dark, who drop in
to see the doves of Bajazet plunge
into the court like an avalanch of
dusky, impurpled snow, and whirl out
again like a winged cloud of smoke
Near one of the mosques, in its act
ual shadow, where SO many of the
faithful And MONDAY rest and sleep, |
saw a sorceress revealing her mystic
les to a Bashi-Bazouk. This bag,
who might have gone on as a witch
in Macbeth and been applauded for
her capital make up-this lean and
grinning ancient was crouching on all
tours and studying litter of shells,
coins, buttons, broken glass, old nails,
| and other rubbish, which she had
just cast from her hand. Out of the
chaos she spun a web of fate that
made the lad who was involved in it
fairly shiyer with delight. Our drag