My dervish and I lived almost free of expense, so plentifully were we supplied with food. The women, in particular, did not lose an opportunity of bringing me presents of fruit, honey, bread, and other necessaries, for which I repaid them with kind thanks, and now and then with a talisman, written with my own hand.
But although our life was one of ease, yet it was so dull, and so void of incident, that even the spirits of my companion began to sink under it. In order to fill up some of the long hours of listlessness which oppressed us, I encouraged him to recite all his stories, one by one, not forgetting the one which he had related with so much effect in the caravanserai of the sultans reservoir, and we found this a very agreeable mode of closing the day.
I feel, O reader, that you also may partake of that same dullness which oppressed me; and I think it but fair that I should endeavour to dissipate it, in the same manner as mine was by the dervish,--therefore I will repeat the story which he related to me; and, whether it amuses you or not, yet perhaps you will be glad to know how the mind of a poor prisoner, in the sanctuary at Kom, was diverted from its miseries.
The present Khon-khor of Roum[79] is a staunch Mussulman and a rigid upholder of the true faith. Upon his coming to the throne, he announced his intention of doing away with many customs common to the infidels, which had crept into the administration of the state during the reign of his predecessor; and he thought it his duty to endeavour to restore things to their primitive simplicity and to adopt a mode of government purely Turkish. Accordingly he resumed a custom which had almost got into disuse,--that of going about the city in _tebdil_, or disguise; and he was so careful about the disguises which he adopted, and the people whom he admitted into his secrets on these occasions, that he took all sorts of precautions, and invented all sorts of schemes of secrecy, in whatever related to his dresses, and the characters in which he chose to appear.
It is not long ago that considerable discontent prevailed throughout Turkey, and rebellion threatened to break out in Constantinople itself. He was then very anxious to ascertain the temper of the public mind; and, in his usual wary manner, determined to get a suit made that would make him undiscoverable by even his own immediate attendants.