rubber men. In another, dervises are pouring
out their souls in perspiration under piles of
cloaks and blankets. In a large tent, brilliantly
lighted with a wooden chandelier, sit thirty
men all in a circle chatting, while a white-
bearded dervise in the middle silently gets
up his spiritual steam. He begins a measured
chant, the chat ceases from the thirty mouths,
and the thirty heads, all keeping time, turn
slowly to the left, and look at the same
instant over the thirty left shoulders. "Al—"
cry thirty mouths together, and back work
the thirty heads to the right, slowly and
solemnly, till thirty faces look at once over
thirty right shoulders: "—lah !" cry the
thirty mouths. Then to the left for an Al—
again; then to the right for a—lah! The
white-beard in the middle gets his steam up
more and more, chants faster and faster. The
thirty faces turn faster and faster; left, right:
Al—lah! Left, right, left, right: A-lah!
Al-lah! Faster and faster, as if thirty men
were furiously trying to shake off their
thirty heads: Allahallahallahallah – the cry
becomes no longer voice – a grunt, a howl.
Excitement grows, the men can no longer sit
still; they leap to their feet, still wagging their
heads incessantly, while their eyes roll, and
their features writhe, and the wild grunt goes
on to the praise of Allah. Turbans are
shaken off, and shaven polls wag on; lips
foam, but through them there still pours the
incessant Allahallahallah. There are twenty-
nine dervises, for one has fallen in a fit and has
been dragged off into a corner by the heels.
The motion of the twenty-nine is changed to
a duck forward, which brings the nose into
perpetual relation with the knees, and at
each spasmodic bow "Allah" is now jerked
out of the nine-and-twenty mouths in one
spasmodic syllable, which seems to have
been retched up from the nine-and-twenty
stomachs.

The time changes. It is still the Festival
of the Prophet, but it is day, and we are
waiting near tlie principal tent of the dervises
to see the ceremony of the Doseh or the
Trampling. Thousands of people are assembled,
some on the top of a great wall, some on
tree-tops, some on house-tops, others on the
top of our own toes. There is room among
the crowd, however, for some stalls that have
been set up by boys and women who sell
oranges, sweetmeats, and sherbet. What
would be the pleasure of a spectacle from
which there was absent that aesthetic element
of perfect refreshment represented at our own
places of mental recreation by the body-soothing
apples, oranges, and ginger-beer? There
is a stir now in the crowd; the sea of heads
rises an inch or two, for the spectators are on
tiptoe. Flags are to be seen coming from the
direction of the Iron Gate; most of them are
green, inscribed with letters from the Koran.
Clubmen who march before the flags hew out
of the crowd an alley about six feet wide.
We have felt the clubs, and have stood back,
and are rewarded for our sufferings by a
place in the front row of the human hedge by
which the lane is bounded.

Two and two in a long file, the near hands
of each pair clasped together, and the off
hands resting on the shoulders of the men
before them, down there comes rushing
through the lane a torrent of about two
hundred young dervises. As they come they
sway with an uniform automaton movement
from side to side, gasping out "Allah;" they
are all pale and bathed in sweat; they appear
to be all drunk with fanaticism, some perhaps
with a draught of something better, which
may help them to go through their pious
work. Suddenly all stop, fall flat upon their
faces, and arrange themselves side by side to
form a living pavement, a sort of corduroy
road of men.

Busy officials running to and fro fit all
the human logs together neatly, by adjusting
here an arm and there a leg. The logs,
however, are not bound to lie quite still, but, on
the contrary, they are expected to keep up, and
do keep up, a convulsive twitching motion
through their bodies, while at the same time
these miserable men are all at work rubbing
their noses violently in the dust from side to
side, and grunting out the name of God in
swinish accents. Some believing bystanders
are infected with the fierce plague of fanaticism,
and go down among the grovellers.
There is a murmur, a shout, and a dead
silence, while the crowd sways eagerly
forward. A stout man, on a powerful horse,
surrounded by about a dozen attendants,
moves at a quick walking pace over the
prostrate bodies. Each dervise receives the horse's
tread over his loins; some throw up their
heads and feet when the weight falls, writhing
like worms. The sheikh rides on and away.
The friends of the dervises run forward to
pick them up, and whisper in their ears
"Wahed," which means "Declare the Unity of
God." Some can only groan, some are in a
swoon, some respond to the appeal with
foaming or with bleeding lips. A few have
evidently passed through fanaticism into
fits. There is a tall Arab who leaps like
a fish whenever he is touched upon the
breast.

Faint with the pressure of the crowd and
with the repulsive nature of the spectacle,
our own heads become dizzy, and objects
become indistinct before our eyes. Possibly
that may be also the effect of the Nile flood
into which we have dipped. They say that a
whole life-story becomes present in the
compass of a minute to the drowning man;
the Nile may therefore set another vision or
two swimming in our heads before we rise up
to the surface.

We are at the base of a pyramid of Dashour,
and climb up to the entrance. A long, sloping
gallery leads us down to a low passage,
through which we creep with labour among
huge stones into a gloomy chamber. A