Then they begin repeating the same word or phrase, Allah, Allah, Allah, with a gentle inclination of the body. This action gradually increases with the rise of the voices, which, if they unconsciously flag for a minute, are vigorously taken up and maintained again. At a given sign from the sheik they cease. All stand up.
Then the same recommences with increased exercise, and an occasional howl from some more devout worshipper, while soft wild music is heard outside. Gradually you are fascinated by this circle of men, all bowing at the same moment, all intoning on one note; and now it is a groaning noise they make, and it grows and grows, till the raising of the sheik's hands stops it once more.
Then they take off their clothes, their turbans, and undo their long hair, and the real work of worship commences. The sheik touches a man on the shoulder, and singles him out to stand in the centre. The swaying recommences, but with the violence where they left off as the first stage, and the dervish in the centre leads, swaying, bending, all in time. Music strikes up, the tom-tom of large tambourines—a deafening, discordant pandemonium, to which they are moving in time, urged on by the increase and swell of the music faster, ever increasing, louder the music, deafening its sound. A circle of wild magnetic creatures tossing their locks of hair, unconscious, mechanical, holding a mesmerized look on the dervish, who with closed eyes performs with ecstasy the exercise of his salvation. Another steps into the circle, and begins, with arms outstretched, slowly to turn and twirl round and round and round—never moving from the exact spot of ground where he first took his stand—gently at first, increasing slowly, becoming fast, faster—a whirl now. All is utter confusion. Chaos has come. The scene swims before your eyes; the wild fanatical little body of surging, swaying dervishes is becoming indistinct, when a sudden raising of the finger brings it all to a close in an instant; only one last resounding thud of the tom-tom, one prolonged howl lingers on the echo. The spinning dervish sinks exhausted to the ground.
Saturday, March 7th.—Lady Baring took me to the Vicereine's "at home" on Saturday afternoon at the Atchin Palace. We entered by a private way and back staircase, and were shown through a succession of reception-rooms to a small drawing-room or boudoir, where her Highness sat.
She is still young and has pretty features—all say she is most pleasant and good-natured; but she has grown, and is growing, enormously stout. The Vicereine was arrayed in a Parisian toilette of black, and, save for the representative feature of a bunch of red roses and diamond ornaments, looked completely European. The slaves, too, were dressed in English materials of old gold, blue, and pink silks, with gilt waistbands and bunches of roses, and not as one had looked to see them, in some graceful Oriental costume. We all sat round in a circle for the prescribed time, and cigarettes were offered and coffee brought, that nasty, bitter Arabian coffee, in tiny cups with Turkish stands.
The same afternoon we called on M. Camille Barrère at the French Agency, the most beautiful house in Cairo, just purchased by the French Government. There are some very unique ceilings and mosaic dados in it, and a great quantity of the pretty mushrebeeyah.
We dined in the evening with Nubar Pasha, the Prime Minister, and Madame Nubar; and after dinner went to a Turkish piece at the theatre. Quite half the galleries were curtained for the ladies of the harem, behind which, we could see, they were crowded; and when everybody left the house between the acts, it was from thence came the clouds of smoke that filled the theatre. Nubar Pasha is a very charming and courteous man.
Sunday, March 8th.—The Premier very kindly lent us his dahabeeyah to go up the Nile.
One always has a very mistaken idea about the beauty of the Nile. It is an exceedingly ugly river, with shoals and sandbanks lying about in its course. Going up only a little way from Cairo, there is a fine view of the Mokattam Range, the citadel, with the mosque of Mahomet Ali, whose slender minars tower as high again above the hills. Warehouses and manufactories, followed by mud villages, render the banks utterly hideous and uninteresting. The nuggars, with their sharp-angled sails and enormously tall, slanting masts, are alone pretty and picturesque. We returned to Cairo as the sun was setting.
Wednesday, March 11th.—Got up early, packed, drove to the station, took our seats in the train for Suez, to embark on board the P. and O. Tasmania for Malta, Gibraltar, and Spain. Three minutes before the train started, bag and baggage we bundled out again. I saw in the paper there were fresh earthquakes in Spain, and particularly at Malaga, where we must have landed from Gibraltar.