not have a bite this morning, that’s sure for ye. May Heaven guide him and the blessed Virgin protect him!” Then out of hearing it is, “Och! the dirty spalpeen! What will I do wid this? May the curse of Cromwell light on ye for a murthering Sassenach. What will I do honey? and I not had a sup of gin this blessed day to keep the cowld out of me poor thrimbling ould body!”
But I am digressing. One day I took a donkey ride to old Cairo, and with others from the hotel visited the dancing dervishes, and the house said to have been inhabited by our Saviour. Old Cairo is about two miles distant from Grand Cairo. It was at old Cairo that the child Jesus, with Joseph and Mary, lived for a time, having fled from the bloody, persecuting Herod. The place said to have been His exile home is now a small Greek church. The steps to the room are very much worn, but great care is taken of every part of it; silver lamps, hung from the ceiling, are burning night and day, and no one is allowed to enter without the presence of a Greek priest. It certainly is not difficult to believe that, considering the mild Syrian atmosphere, and the absence of rain, the building may be much more than 1,800 years old.
The dancing dervishes next engaged our attention. When in Constantinople I visited the dancing dervishes at Pera and the howling dervishes on the other side of the Bosphorus at Scutari. The dancing dervishes wear a dress of greyish material, which reaches a little below the knee, and is confined by a girdle round the waist. When they spin round like Teetotums this looks like an open umbrella. The head is covered by a curious-looking, tall, conical felt hat without any brim.
The word itself, Dervish, or Dervise, is of Persian origin, and signifies poor. It denotes the same amongst Mahomedans as monk with Christians. The observance of strict forms, fasting and acts of piety, give them a character of sanctity amongst the people. They live partly together in monasteries partly alone, and from their number the Imams (priests) are generally chosen. Throughout Turkey they are freely received, even at the tables of persons of the highest rank. Among the Hindus they are called fakirs. There are throughout Asia multitudes of these devotees, monastic and ascetic, not only among the Mahomedans, but also among the followers of Brahma. There are no less than thirty-two religious orders now existing in the Turkish Empire, many of whom are scarcely known beyond its limits; but others, such as the Nakshbendies and Mevlevies, are common in Persia and India. All these communities are properly stationary, though some of them send out a portion of their members to collect alms. The regularly itinerant dervishes in Turkey are all foreigners or outcasts, who, though expelled from their orders for misconduct, find their profession too agreeable and profitable to be abandoned, and therefore set up for themselves, and, under colour of sanctity, fleece honest people. All these orders, except the Nakshbendies are considered as living in seclusion from the world; but that order is composed entirely of persons who, without quitting the world, bind themselves to a strict observance of certain forms of devotion, and meet once a week to perform them together. Each order has its peculiar statutes, exercises, and habits. Most of them impose a novitiate, the length of which depends upon the spiritual state of the candidate, who is sometimes kept for a whole year under this kind of discipline. In the order of the Mevlevies, the novice perfects his spiritual knowledge in the kitchen of the convent. The numerous orders of dervishes are all divided into two great classes, the dancing and the howling dervishes. The former are the Mevlevies, and are held in much higher estimation than the other class, and are the wealthiest of all the religious bodies of the Turkish Empire. Their principal monastery is at Konieh, but they have another at Pera, a suburb of Constantinople, where they may be seen engaged in their exercises every Wednesday and Thursday. These are performed in a round chamber, in the centre of which sits their chief or sheik, the hem of whose garment each dervish reverently kisses on entering the chamber, after which they go and range themselves round the chamber with their legs tucked under them. When all the dervishes have entered and saluted the sheik, they all rise together and go in procession three times round the room, the sheik at their head. Each time they do obeisance to the empty seat of the sheik on coming to a certain part of the room. The procession ended, the sheik again takes his place in the centre, and all the others begin dancing round him, turning on themselves at the same time that they move round the room. The arms are extended, the palm of the right turned upward and the palm of the left downward, to indicate that what they receive from heaven with the right they give away to the poor with the left, while sounds of music are heard from a neighbouring gallery. The movement at first is slow, but as the dervishes become excited they become more animated, and revolve so quickly that they look like tops spinning round; at last they sink exhausted on the floor. After a while they renew their exertions, and repeat it several times. The whole is concluded by a sermon.
The howling dervishes do not confine themselves in their exercises to the dancing just described. They accompany them with loud vociferations of the name of Allah, and violent contortions of the body such as are seen in persons seized with epileptic fits. And even these extravagances are not so bad as those which were formerly practised, when the dervishes, after working themselves into a frenzy, used to cut and torture themselves in various ways with apparent delight. The sheiks of all orders have the credit of possessing miraculous powers. The interpretation of dreams, the cure of diseases, and the removal of barrenness, are the gifts for which the dervishes are most in repute. Had I to live in such a hot climate as Cairo, I should feel thankful that our religion does not necessitate such violent bodily exertion as that which these dervishes indulge in. The road to old Cairo was very, very dusty, and the weather excessively hot, as it always is in the day time. We left the dancing dervishes after remaining about half-an-hour, and rode back to our hotel in the afternoon too late for any further explorations that day. On the following day I spent some hours in a very enjoyable and also instructive manner, namely in inspecting the priceless articles in the Baulac Museum. This museum, I suppose, contains some of the most ancient things in this world, and I regret very much that I could not devote a week to inspecting the contents of it instead of a few hours. I should have seen the treasures contained here, and known very little concerning them (as there was no catalogue), had I not been so fortunate as to get into conversation with Brusch Bey, the curator, a most intelligent and obliging gentleman, whose heart is enthusiastically in his work. He was kind enough to spend about two or three hours with me and enlighten me on very many things which would have been a sealed book to me but for him. There lay before us one grand discovery of 32 kings and queens, who had ruled Egypt in the dim distant ages long ago. The gilding on the inner coffins was as perfect and untarnished as it was the week they were executed, although thousands of years have rolled by since the handy craftsman was engaged on them. They were covered with information that none but an Egyptologist could decipher. In this museum was pointed out to me a picture said to be the most ancient in the world, it was a painted picture of Egyptian geese, as well done, I should imagine, as any ordinary painter of the present day could do it. There were bronzes and polished marble statuary as perfect in appearance as when they left the workmen’s hands, and, as far as I could judge, as well finished as they would be by workmen of the present day, although 2,000 or 3,000 years old. An ingenious and strong little cabinet engaged my attention some time; the doors of hard wood were well carved and the joints as exquisitely dove-tailed in as any man of the present day could make them. In a glass case I saw basket-work, a chair, rope, twine, seals, rings, javelins, slings, food and seeds as they were found in an ancient tomb, the mason’s mallet cut out of a solid piece of wood, precisely the same shape and size as those in use here at the present time, jewellery well-finished and solid-looking, and many other things too numerous to mention. On carefully examining this valuable and interesting collection, some of which were 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000 years old, I could not help thinking that they served well to illustrate the highly civilized condition of the people at so remote a period.
To give details of all the interesting things in this museum would occupy too much time to the exclusion of other matter, but there are two things that call for notice on account of their very great antiquity. One is a wooden statue, which has been carved out of a solid block of very hard wood, and is that of a man about 5ft. 7in. in height. As one stands in front of that wooden statue gazing for a short time, he almost appears to be endowed with a soul and the power of speech, so excellent is the execution of the figure, and so expressive the face; no one can doubt for a moment that he was the creation of a high civilization. It was found in a tomb at Sakhara
