The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-09-19
A MOhammedaN Scene - DeMOnstra-
lions of Wild Fanatics.

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD writes
as follows in the atlantic Monthly:
Our tent was close at hand; we sought
it with the nonchalance of travellers
who rather enjoy breaking tables of the
law. We were glad of the escape and
of the occasion Of it; likewise grateful
for the slight shelter our tent afforded,
for by this time FL Ezlekeeyeh was
shrouded in fine, sitting rain that
sparkled in the sunshine as the golden
light shot through it. Music (plenty
of it) growing louder and more loud,
and the roar of 10000 voices swept
down upon us, and then the rush of
heralds crying, ''Make way, make
wayr' and the dervishcs thus an
nounced advanced to offer up their
bodies to the doseh. They fastened
up the avenue in groups; each group
was clustered about staff decorated
with holy rags and saints relics. All
faces were turned toward the relics
the haggard faces of the dervishes,
who hung together with arms entwined,
compact as swarming bees; sacred BAN
ners tluttered down the whole length
of procession made up of these
grouped dervishes. Not one of the
victims seemed in his right mind; the
majority of them were idiotic. Their
swollen tongues lolied from their
mouths; their heads wagged YEARLY on
their shoulders, and their eyes were
either closed or fixed and staring.
Many of them were naked to the waist,
turbanless, barefooted and barelegged
to the knee. In fact, they were of the
lowest orders of the East, impover-
ished, f.natical, forlorn. They hast
ened to the top of the avenue, a part
of those in each group running back
ward. When they had assembled to
the number of 400, the friends who &C
companied them separated each cluster
of dervishes, and began paving the way
with their bodies. They lay face down
in the dust, the arms crossed under the
forehead; they are ranged shoulder to
shoulder, hip to hip, though the heads
were not always turned in the same d.
rectiOn, but were occasionally reversed.
Friends gathered at the head of each
of the dervishes, and with the volumi-
nous breadths of their garments famed
the PROSTATE forms rapidly and inces-
sanity. In truth the dervishes seemed
fainting with hunger and fatigue, and,
us the crowd pressed close upon them,
they would doubtless have become in
sensible in Il short time but for the fit
full breath afforded by these Tapping
sails. observed that the majority of
the dervishes lay as still as death; but
there were those who raised their heads
and looked wildly about until their
friends had quoted them, or, as in some
eases, had forced them to lie still, while
the confusion increased, and the intense
excitement at the lower end of the ave-
nue. announced the approach of the
sheik. A few footmen then ran rapid
ly over the PROSTATE bodies, beating
small copper drums of hemispherical
form. and crying in 4 loud voice, I" AL
lahr' The attendants, Us they saw the
sheik's great turban nodding above the
crowd. grew nervous, and some of them
lost all self-control; one man standing
close beside me went stark mad, and
three muscular fellows had some diff.
Guilty in dragging him away from the
spot. He came, the sheik of the saadee.
web, swathed in purple and fine linen,
and mounted upon a gray steed. The
bride was in the hands Of two attend.
ants; two others leaped upon the hind
quarters of the animal to support his
unsteady steps. The horse was shod
with large, flat shoes, like plates OF
steel, that flashed in the sunshine; he
stepped cautiously and with some hest.
tation upon the bodies, usually placing
his foot upon the hips or thighs of the
dervishes; sometimes the steel-shoC
hoof slipped down the ribs OF Il man, OF
sank in between the thighs, for in ne
case could it touch the earth, so close
ly were the bodies ranged side by side
If any shrek of agony escaped from tho
lips of the dervishes heard it not, fol
the air was continually rent with The
cry of "Allah-la-la-la-lah," the rip.
ping prayer, breath long, continual
ly reiterated. The sheik was stupefee
with opium, for he performs the act
much against his will, in Difference tt
the demands of the people; he rocked
in his saddle until he had passed the
whole length of that avenue paved will
human flesh, and then withdrew into {
tent prepared for his reception, wher.
he received the devoted homage o.
such as were able to force their way
into his presence.