Morning journal and courier., 1889-11-04
THE DRRvIsHEs.


Cairo or at Zagazig, or, In short, anywhere
throughout the length of the land, is der
vish-belongs, that is, to some sect or Sec
ton, more or less fanatical, of orthodox
Aussulman faith. Some of these sects are
more popular in one place than in another.
The Rufayeh, for example, are the most
common in lower Egypt, but others are al
most equally numerous. An immense null
titude of the Saidieh order used to prostrate
themselves under the hoefs Of their sheik's
horse at the annual doseh or treading, now
abolished. Many of these men were walters
at hotels and servants in private families.
affects the cult of Byumeh, is perhaps the
most numerous in all northern Africa, but
new cults, and with them new orders, are
constantly invading the old, both In Arabia
and Egypt. We hear less now than former
ly of the Wahabees, who at one time threat
ened to overrun not only Arabia, but Persia
and even India. -
ARABS OF PURE BLOOD.
The Mahdist dervish belongs to wholly
different class from the Saidieh or Rufayeh
Egyptian who makes your bed or minds your
horse or rows your boat. he is an Arab Of
pure blood, whiter than the average Eure-
nounced features, sometimes almost Jewish
in type, and an air of pride and probity
coupled with politeness and general superb
ority at first sight most engaging and decep-
tive. He is known among the dwellers In
the Nile valley. not as deryish, but as
jellab-pronounced in Egypt "galiab"-a
term which means a merchant, and, for rea-
sons only too good, has of late years denoted
q merchant of one commodity only-namelY,
slaves. The SLAYER on the Nile received sad
blows and encouragement during the reigns
of such viceroys as Baker Pashs and Gordon,
and took to honest merchandise, such as
ivory, feathers, henna, SIENNA and the hides
Of antelopes and leopards. During the short
but prosperous period indicated the jeliabs
might have been eeen in Nubia or at Assouan
with their cargoes, and it was difficult to
connect these noble looking fellows, with
their regal manners, their exquisite robes of
white cashmere and their searfs of priceless
needlework, with the stories you heard from
the people around, who still dreaded and
hated them-stories of craft, oppression, ra-
pine, lust and cruelty for its own sake, such
as would make both hearers ears to tingle
These are the men whom the present turn of
affairs has rendered desperate. By their own
doing they have closed the legitimate market
they once enjoyed, and their fanaticism has
grown as their wealth has shrunk, while the
countless negroes whom under Ishmael Pa
sha they were enabled to carry into Egypt
are now at q mature age able to retsliate on
their old oppressors and to revenge the woes
of slaughtered fathers and outraged mothers
upon the remnants of the hated jellabs.
To speak of these black troops as "na-
tives" is somewhat incorrect. A few, mere
handful, are of a second generation from
those originally imported; but the bulk of
the fSoudanese regiments" are slaves import
ed by those very Arab traders, and remember
personally or by tradition of their elders how
they came into the Egyptian house OF bond
age, what horrors of torture they underwent
at the hands of these lordly jellabs, and how
finally, after undergoing and surviving
while thousands persisted beside them, thes
horrors, they were seized by connivance o
the E,y psian government, and, under tn
name of liberated slaves, were put into train
ing for the army. The supply of these sol
diers is not, as some authorities seem d
think, inexhaustible. Mr.. Stanley tooh
away with him goodly contingent; another
Nile; bat of those that remain it may safel,
be said that for war in SO hot region, and
especially against the slave dealers (whom VI
dignity as "dervishes" above all other der
vishes), they are most useful, and may even
tually be of further use as showing an ex'
| ample to the fellah soldier.
HOW THE BLACKS FIGHT.
The great drawback to their employment
is their inherent savagery. They are reok
less of the lives they have with such Difficult
| ty preserved, and when they come hand tt
hand with their former masters the unhapp.
| jellab has but a poor chance. When, a
| Suakin, they were ordered to charge
| trenchful of dervishes they went forward
| with reckless fury, outstripping their Euro
pean officers, and occupying simultaneously
| both ends of the trench, literally raked /
| from end to end with their FIRE, leaving not
single man alive. How far they are to b.
| depended on before other troops we have NJ
means of knowing. The few Egyptian reg
iments who were led to defeat by the ex
khsdive's son in the Turkish and Russian
war were largely composed of black slaves
then newly imported by the jellsbs, hastily
drilled, led by Turkish or Egyptian officers
and exposed to the one elemental condition
of which they had previously known moth
ing-intense cold. They had been parboilet
under the equator and roasted in the desert
but snow and frost were too much for them
| They mad, moreover, no special Rrudg
against the Russisn-on the contrary, if the.
had been long enough in Egypt they coult
| nat but have learned to hate the Turk.
Their Moslem fanaticism, If it has eve
existed, has not had time to grow; and
unlike the iellsbs, the soldiers Of the cza
had never injured them. With the soldier
| of Sir Francis Grenfell it is different
Their own recollections of early life-wha
| they have heard from their comrades-wha
has been told to them by the unhappy re
fugee on Nubian territory of the vengeanc
wreaked by the 'dervishes" on the unresist
ing villagers of the Upper Nile after the fall G
Khartoum-these and many other considera
<tions which it is not very easy for the Eng
lish traveller to fathom make the black so
dier an inplacable foe to the white faced je
4 II
his village and subjected himself to ever
indignity and bodily torment that the moi
refined system of cruelty could invent.