Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-07-25

TERN
872.
Festival Of the Birth of the Prophet.
A correspondent at Cairo, writing to
the Pail Mall Gazette, gives q very
graphic account of this festival. which
takes place in May. "The Moolid-en-
Nebee, or Festival of the Birth of the
Prophet, he says, "extends over more
than week, and attracts great num-
bers to the metropolis, SO that the mar
row streets and baZaars seem more than
usually thronged at this time. Num-
bers OF dervishes from the country
swell the crowd, but are not distin-
gulshable by any popularity of dress
hawkers, peddlers, buffoons, conjurors,
gipsies, and iugglers, are seen wherever
they can gather together q crowd
OF spectators But everything and
every one tends in one direction, viz: to
the large open space southwest
OF the Ezbekeeyen, at the back of the
New Grand Hotel. This space is very
dusty dry land. Large and spacious
tents hung within with richly colorel
stuffs are pitched all round the ground.
These tents are open at the front, and
brilliantly illuminated at night by in
Vulnerable lamps; and here all night
long and the greater part of the day
the various sects of dervishes celebrate
their zikra. Looking into one of these
crowded and brilliantly lighted tents,
one might fancy oneself before some
dazzling scene in pantomime. In the
center are the Zikkeers, whose per-
formances have been 80 often de-
scribed but here one has only to walk
few steps in order to see them in
every possible variety. In one tent
they are to be found seated on rug on
the ground, calm, and dignified, slowly
swaying their bodies to and fro as they
solemnly chant the Koran in deep melo.
dlous tones, which, from a distance,
sound like the moaning sea. In the
next one finds them on their feet in the
frenzied excitement of protracted
zikr, their whole bodies violently rock
ed. or rather hurled, from side to side,
while the deep and guttcral : Ullah |!
Uuah! bursts from their lips like q
groan. The sheykh at their head
excites them to yet further exertions,
and from time to time the frenzy rises
to pitch which it seems impossible to
exceed, and then relapses again for a
brief space as if to prepare for Il fresh
Outburst. All round the performing
dervishes within the tents are ranged
rows of spectators according to their
rank and age. Most OF these are calm
~ smoking and drinking coffee, ap-
parently regardless of the wild scene
gong on in the midst of them.
In the large open space enclosed
within the tents the crowd, wandered
about at pleasure; more or less in the
dark except for the occasional fireworks
and the illuminati0ns. Very few wo-
men were to be seen, and only few
carriages, some of them occupied by
the ladies' of some harem, CLOSELY
velled, and getting what glimpses they
could of the scene from behind the
blinds. This celebration was repeated
with more or less animation everY night
for week. But the great day was vet
to come, when the event of the festival
was to take place. This is the Doseh
or 'Treading.' On the morning of the
18th l stationed myself in front of the
Grand Hotel, where I knew the pro-
cession must pass, and having secured
q promising looking donkey, awaited
it's arrival. The Doseh takes place in
the open space by the tents, to which I
made the best of my way through the
throng, and took up m advantageous
position for viewing the spectacle. The
dervishes arrived, and in a very short
time long lane, paved with PROSTATE
human forms was made. There must
have been not less than $50 to 800 rang
ed close side by side ON their face in
the dust and extending over about one
hundred yards Of ground. On either
side stood the spectators IN a dense
throng, perfect sea of turbans, which
from time to- time became stormy,
heaving sea, as the Egyptian p,,lics
rained blows on the heads of the fore
most spectators, and drove them back
with an amount of violence which
seemed as unnecessary as it was cruel.
had wedged my donkey in little be-
bind the front row of spectators, over
whose heads I could see, and there /
remained seated. -"
We waited while the particular no.
liceman in front of me broke three
sticks over the heads of my unfortu-
nate Arabs right and left, and caused
thereby such swaying and commotion
that my poor little donkey was almost
carried off his legs, aud must have
been nearly suffocated. It was now IL
O'Clock: the heat and dust were becom-
ing lntolerable. We seemed to have
been waiting an age; what it must
have been to those infatuated dervishes
lying ON their faces in the dust, and
muttering the name of Allah to them
selves as they awaited their fate. At
last deserted the head of
the mounted sheykh nearing the begin.
ming of the lane, when two or three men
ran quickly over the backs of the der
wishes; few minutes more and the
horse and his rider were on their backs
too, the horse plunging and staggering
as his feet slipped on the shrinking
human forms. the sheykh with his head
thrown back and half-agonized ex-
preston on his face as if he could not
bear to look down, but sitting all
the while quite passive "'on
his horse, which was led or rather drag
ged on by two men at his bride, who
walked on the heads and feet of the
PROSTATE dervishes. It was not q pleas
ant sight, but soon over, and then fol-
lowed scene of lndiscribable confu-
sion. The whole body of spectators
rushed in, the police were nowhere, and
all that could be seen was Struggling
expanse of turbaned forms. Some OF
the dervishes were already on tneir
teet again, apparently unhurt,
but many were being car
ried out by their friendsinsensible and
possibly lifeless, some foaming at the
mouth and violently convulsed. One
quite young lad saw carried out and
laid on the ground perfectly rigid and
motionless. I waited some time with
out seeing any signs of returning lie,
and was carried away by the rush of
the crowd under the conviction that he
was dead, which he may we'll have
been, though the Mahometlan beiiev-
ers maintain that the horse is miracu-
lously uplifted, and that no one is even
hurt"
A Coppcrhrad Snake in a Indy'> Clothes.
From the chilicothe (O.> Advertiser.
A few days since, Mrs. Sarah Nc