“Yes, but that no good would be for ze dervish. He dry his clothes just like somebody else, and no have much clothes to dry.”
“Not for his clothes,” I replied, “but for the service we have just attended. Let them erect such a machine in their ball-room, and have it large enough to hold all the worshippers. Put them inside and start the engine, and they could do more whirling in, fifteen minutes than they can do in a week in the old fashioned way.”
“I think ze Moslem no like such machine, but I speak to ze sheik next time I see him. How much cost one machine?”
I went on to explain its cost and advantages to the innocent guide, who did not suspect that he was being hoaxed. Whether he spoke to the dervishes about it or not, I am unable to say, but at all events he never made any report of the matter to me.
The “Howling Dervishes” are another sort of devotees. Their convent where I visited them was more like a mosque than was that of the Whirlers, as it was much larger and had a high roof. The walls were bare of ornament, except of inscriptions from the Koran; on the side, where stood the altar, there was a lot of implements of warfare, including spears, arrows, old matchlocks, swords and various other odds and ends, all of an ancient appearance. We went through the usual process of leaving our boots at the door, but we were not obliged to stand during the performance. A polite attendant brought chairs enough for seating all the strangers, and thus made us comfortable. There were about fifty worshippers, and they stood in a semicircle, with their chief inside. He began a low chant which included one of the chapters of the Koran, and was joined in the chant by the rest of the party.
At each verse they threw their heads forward, with a jerk, and immediately threw them backwards. The chant was very soon concluded, and without any pause the chief started the formula, “la Hah! il Alla!”
Now we began to understand why these pious individuals were called “howlers.” The sound that they produced was more like the noise of a menagerie, when the keeper stirs up the beasts, than like the tones of the human voice. It was a rough and rather prolonged bark and howl, in which the word Allah! was all that could be understood. The movement of the head became an inclination of the whole body from the hips upward; at one instant the men were bent nearly double, and at the next they had their heads thrown forward, so that their faces were horizontal, and there seemed a probability that the worshippers would fall backward.