Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-03-09
DERyIsHEs AND "ELACKS.,,
The Warriors of the Soudan Befcnt-
cd by shc Egyptians

DEEV7SHES AND "zsEACAS.''
The Warriors of the SOudan Befent-
cd by she Egyptians.
The fierce battle between the Dervishes
and Egyptian troops, which was reported
Saturday, attracts attention to the charac
ter of the combatants. A writer in the
London Saturday Review, in August,
1899, gave some interesting particulars
concerning both the Dervishes and their
foes. He said;
1t has been more than once pointed out
here that the so called dervishes are no
more or little more dervishes than any
African Moslems. AS q fact, every fol-
lower of Mohammed is 'dervish' in some
sense or other of the word. Your don
key boy in Cairo or at Girgeh, or at Zaga-
zig, or, in Short anywhere throughout the
length of the land, is a dervish-belongs,
that is, to some sect, sor section, more or
less fanatical, of orthodox Mussulman
faith. Some of these sects are more pop
ular in one place than in another. The
Rufayeh, for example, are the most com
mon in Lower Egypt, but Others are al
most equally numerous An immense
multitude of the Saidieh order used to
PROSTATE themselves under the hoofs of
their Sheykh's horse at the annual Doseh.
or treading, now abolished. Many of
these men were walters at hotels and SER
wants in private families. The great All
medieh order, which especially affects the
cult of Byumeh, is perhaps the most nu-
merous in all northern Africa; but new
cults, and with them new orders, are con-
stantly invading the old, both in Arabia
and Egypt. We hear less now than for
merly of the Wahabees, who at one time
threatened to overrun not only Arabia,
| but Persia and even India.
The present Mahdist movement is some
| what of the same kind in the tenets of its
| votaries, but differs essentially from any
of the sectarian divisions of Lower Egypt.
| The Maydist dervish belongs to wholly
| different class from the Saidieh or Rufay-
| eh Egyptian who makes your bed or minds
| your horse, or rows your boat. He is an
| Arab of pure blood, whittier than the aver
age European, handsome to a high degree,
with pronounced features, something al
most Jewish in type, and an air of pride
and probity, coupled with a politeness and
general superiority at first sight most en-
couraging and deceptive. He is known
among the dwellers in the Nile valley, not
as dervish, but as a jellab-pronounced
! in Egypt gallaE'-a term which means q
merchant, and, for reasons only too good,
has of late years denoted merchant OF
| one commodity, namely, slaves. The
SLAYER on the Nile received sad blows and
discouragement during the reigns of such
| viceroys as Baker Pasha and Gordon, and
took to honest merchandise, such as ivory
| feathers, henna, senna, and the hides OF
| antelopes and leopards.
During the short but prosperous period
indicated the jellabs might have been seen
in Nubis 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 scarfs of priceless needlework
with the stories you heard from the people
around, who still dreaded and hated them
stories of craft, oppression, rapine, lust
and cruelty for its own sake, such as
would make both hearers ears to tingle
These are the men whom the present state
of affairs has rendered desperate. By
their own doing they have closed the le
gitimate market they once enjoyed, an6
their fanaticism has grown as their wealth
has shrunk, while the countless negroes
whom under Ismail Pasha they were ena
bled to carry into Egypt are now at ma
ture age able to retaliate on their own op
pressors and to revenge the woes o
slaughtered fathers and outraged mothers
upon the remnants of the hated jellabs.
To speak of these black troops as ma
tives' is somewhat incorrect. A few,
mere handful, are of second generation
from those originally imported; but tn
bulk of 'Sopdanese regiments are slave
imported by these very Arab traders an'
remember personally, or by tradition o
their elders, how they came into the Egyp
tiau house of bondage, what horrors O
. torture they underwent at the hands Q
: these lordly jellabs, and how, finally, afte
undergoing and surviving, while thor
, sands perished beside him, these horror
l they were seized by connivance of Ii
: Egyptian goyeEnmsnt, and, under Il