It is, however, to the universal surveillance of Sultan Mahmoud that the unfortunates who tenant the building are indebted for the only comforts which they are still capable of enjoying; for but a few years ago they were unapproachable to the stranger, from the filthy and neglected state of both their cells and their persons. By an Imperial order, cleanliness and care have been secured to them; and the calm, and in many instances, affectionate manner, in which they conversed with their keepers, was a convincing proof that they were kindly treated. The Turks have, moreover, a superstitious reverence for the insane. They believe that the spirit has been recalled by its GOD, and the hallucinated being is regarded as almost saintly; a beatification, however, of which filth appears to be almost a concomitant part in the East; for whenever you encounter in the streets a wild-looking wretch, half Dervish, and half mendicant; so wretchedly filthy, that you dare not suffer him to come in contact with you as you pass him—with a beard matted with dirt, and elf-locks hanging about his shoulders, of which the colour is undistinguishable; ragged, swarming with vermin, and apparently half stupified with opium; should you, amid your disgust, make any inquiry as to his identity, you are told that he is a saint!
This extraordinary race of men (for there are numbers of them about the streets of Constantinople) are self-elected in their holiness; and take up the trade as less ambitious individuals establish themselves in commerce. They affect absence of thought, concentration of mind, and having progressed gradually to a certain point, they finish with partial aberration of intellect; and this last may, in truth, be often real, for the years of unwashed and uncombed misery to which they condemn themselves are enough to produce madness. Ragged and wretched as I have described them, these miserable men are, nevertheless, objects of great veneration to the mass of the people; and the poorest _calmac_, or porter, will seldom refuse his _para_ to one of these saintly mendicants.
The Lunatic Establishment of Solimaniè occupies an inner court of the mosque, whose centre is overshadowed by several magnificent plane trees, planted round a spacious fountain. Three sides of the court are furnished with arches, through which the apartments of the lunatics are entered, while each is ventilated by a couple or more of large grated windows; the number of patients in each cell never exceeding that of the windows. The most painful object connected with the scene, was the heavy chain and collar of iron worn by each of the lunatics, which kept up a perpetual clanking as the unfortunate moved in his restlessness from place to place within his narrow limits. The bedding was cleanly, comfortable, and profuse; and many of the tenants of the cells were eating melons, or smoking their chibouks, as tranquilly and as methodically as though they had been under a very different roof.