The Newtown bee., 1880-01-28

for the roar and rag of the human be- ings behind were ov ,rpowering in their fascination. They came sweeping and surging along in two lines, face to face. every man clasping his neighbours girdle with his left hand, while his right was free to wield his sword, one row with their backs to me, and one with their faces to me, and all slashing away at their own heads with their swords without stint. In many instances their features were undistinguishable from the mass of blood which poured over them. Their heads were shaved, their bodies robed to the neck in white, now dyed red with the streams and spurts which deluged them. In the center between the two rows were officials wildly rushing to and fro to restrain those whose fanaticism had reached too high a pitch, while behind each row were men, relations, 1 understood, ot the devotees, who kept on thrusting l short sticks like rulers between Ethe swords and the headss.of the victims, so as to mitigate the force of the blow.
 Anxious, in spite of the horror of the spectacle, to investigate it psychologi- cally, left my chair among the specta- tors and went down to the edge of the 1 procession, so as to be able to judge how much was real and how much was as- stunned frenzy. I judged that about three-fourths did not like 1t, knew per- fectly well what they were about, and 1 did not cut themselves more than was | absolutely necessary to keep up appear
 ances, though it was essential that every man should be bleeding profusely from l the head, and that one-fourth were really carried away by the excitement, and required watching and restraint; and l observed that both the officials within and the relations without the | line devoted themselves to these men, and seemed lsally afraid lest they should do themselves some mortal injury. In l Persia I understand deaths are rot at all uncommon during the celebration. One man in particular had already re- l duced his scalp to the condition of mince meat; his face was almost hidden be- heath clotted mask; his voice was | broken and husky; he reeled to and fro, l NNANNitoiJ " iCi IAo SiCftL 1 left. He was drunk with blood. The men who pass through this horrible 1 ordeal are either men who have taken VOWS to perform it for some special reason, or the sons of men who have made vows to perform it if God gives them a son. The VOW is entailed upon the son, who has to do it every year, and it then becomes hereditary. As rule, the fanatics are those who have taken the VOW themselves, and not those who have had it entailed upon them.
 | These horrible sIashing creatures passed round the square three times. l Ile Iss; time lhe ,xcitnmnnt bod at tained it's continuation, and blood seemed everywhere. All around were Persians weeping bitterly. There was no doubt about the genuineness oftheir tears. The sympathy weeping had communicated | itself, and what between the solemn chanting, and the clash of cymbals and 1 of swords, and the flow of blood and of tears, and the wild shouts of frenzy, the sights and the sounds were calculated to l leave their mark on the imagination for many day. Alter this was over there was a lull of half an hour; then the der wish came in again at the head of the same small procession which we had times, and then we heard that another crowd of fself-slashers were approaching
 and they came pouring in, more numer- Ous and more frantic than the last
 They were preceded not by cymbals alone, but by most mournful flutes and | pipes, and behind the music came about a dozen men stripped naked to the waist
 Each had a heavy bundle ofshort chains, which he swung first over his right shoulder and then over his left, allowing them to come with horrible force upon his back. Some of their backs were raw before they had made their three rounds, and we heard that they took longer to recover from the effects of this self-infiicted punishment than the men who cut themselves. There were, more over, in this procession five or six more horses than in the other, and more flags and banners; men, too, were beating their chests nor wildly and cutting themselves more fiercely, and the ex- citement generally was more intense. I saw one man so frantic thathe had to be dissarmed and forcibly removed from the line, and as he was being carried away between two men, he kept on striking his head with an imaginary sword and shouting, evidently in a complete state of unconscious exaltation.
 The proceedings wound up with and episode which for moment created quite panic. On their last round the bloody line stopped in front of the Per sian ambassadors division, in which were also seated his friends and the di. plomatic corps. Then they began to shout and sway to and fro and cut themselves, and refused to move on, shouting out especially something in Persian which we could none of us un- derstand. Suddenly they surged in to- ward the point at which he mbassador's s secretary was sitting, together with the French ambassador and several ladies To see a row of lood-stained, hacked up fanatics, each with sharp sword two feet aud half long. bearing down upon you is not reassuring sight, es- pecially when your nerves have been a good deal tried already, so the few spec tators who were standing on the edge of the procession backed precipitately but an extra surge of the bloody line forced them on to the row of chandeliers which all went over with crash on to the French ambassadors toes. who in his turn toppled backward, chair and all, on which one lady tainted and the