The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-03-08
THE ROWLING DERvIsHEs.
An Englishman's Temptation to Join the
Fraternity,

An Englishman's Temptation to Join the
Fraternity.
George Augustus Sals, the London writ
err, recently visited Constantinople con-
vent, in which the bowling dervishes we're
performing their pious solemnties. They
were IS in number, bTawny, unwashed,
ragged vagabonds Of all competitions, from
q pasty white to deep chocolate hue; and
among them was one negro of colossal
stature and of a deep shiny black-a Nu-
bian. They stood up in row against the
wall, and, following tine fuglemanship of
the Sheik, recited the "Lah-illah," which
they pronounced "Lo" and "ollah !" The
principal movement en- their parts seemed
to be a violent stamp on the ground; and
they went up and down, waggng their
preposterous heads, waving their bony
arms, and bringing down their huge feet in
alternate thuds on the ground. They con-
tinued to tramp and to intone their pssl-
mody for about % minutes and then they
began to howl, not by any means in unison,
but every one on his own account. There
were those who bawled bass and those who
growled treble. Some grunted like swine,
some barked like dogs, some lowed like
kline, some beloved like bulls, some squall-
ed like cats, while others merely yelled and
shrieked like human bedlamites.
After describing those peculiar displays
of the bowling dervishes, MIR. Sala speaks
of his personal feeling thus
81 should be ashamed to record-were it
not idle to blush for any action that is per-
fectly natural-that the direst difficulty
which encountered during this mad orgie
of caterwauing, was to refrain myself from
taking an active part in the performance.
There came over me twenty times fierce
and well-nigh irrepressible desire to howl.
There was something more than seductive,
more than tempting-there was that which
was absolutely fascinating aud enthralling
in the opportunity offered for proclaimin g
ones individuality in 'barbaric yawp, IS
Walt Whitman puts it, When might such
another present itself as that offered by the
bowling place of the Agis Yanni? Who
was to say nay to me if elected to yelp?
Among the Roofai facilities are provided
for converting mere rhetoric into logic,
and you may wall yourself out of breath
without scandalizing your neighbors. There
is, apprehend, another and more deep
ly-seated cause which might account for
the temptation, which ostensibv civilized
and apparently rational beings often expe-
rience, to make fools of themselves in the
way of shrleking. Wise physicians will
discourse to you about the proneness of the
nervous system to hystericsl affections, and
the contagiousness Of hysterla itself all l
know is that when one wild beast begins TO
howl another follows suit; that the lion
roaring in the jungle is answered by the
garrulous jackal and the derisively humor-
GUS byena and that African chiefs and
their savage caboceers will, when elevated
by patriotism, piety and rum. shout by the
hour together | was fortunately enabled
to subdue my savage instincts among the
H aon out mad nowed my oude' IN uni
should have been ceding, am afraid, only
to thoroughly natural intuition"