ble way of waving their lovely
plumy wings, and one old fellow twenty-five years old actually
imitates the dervishes. The keeper says to him, "Dance," and although
he is about ten feet tall, he sits down with his scaly legs spread out
on each side of him, and, shutting his eyes, he throws his long, ugly
red neck from side to side, making a curious grunting noise, and
waving his wings in billowy line like a skirt-dancer. It was too
wonderful to see him, and it was almost as revolting as a real
dervish.

We saw these dervishes once; nothing could persuade us to go
twice--they were too nasty. The night the Khedive goes to the Citadel,
to the mosque of Mohammed Ali, to pray for his heart's desire (for on
that night all prayers of the faithful are sure to be answered), the
dervishes in great numbers are performing their rites. They are called
the howling dervishes, but they do not howl; they only make a horrible
grunting noise. They have long, dirty, greasy hair, and as they throw
their bodies backward and forward this hair flies, and sometimes
strikes the careless observer in the face. They work themselves up to
a perfect passion of religious ecstasy to the monotonous sound of Arab
music, and never have I heard or seen anything more revolting. The
negroes in the South when they "get the power" are not nearly so
repulsive.

It is England's wise policy in all her colonies to have her army take
part in the national religious ceremonies, so when the Sacred Carpet
started from the Citadel on its journey to Mecca there was a
magnificent military display.

It is an odd thing to call it a carpet, for it not only is not a
carpet in itself, but it is not the shape of a carpet, it is not used
for a carpet, and does not look like a carpet.

We were among the fortunate ones who were invited to the private view
of it the night before, when the faithful were dedicating it. They sat
on the floor, these Mohammedans, rocking themselves back and forth,
and chanting the Koran. I believe the reason nearly all Arabs have
crooked legs is because they squat so much. One cannot have straight
legs when one uses one's legs to sit down on for hours at a time. They
always sit in the sun, too, and that must bake them into their
crookedness.

The "carpet" is a black velvet embroidered solidly in silver and gold.
It is shaped like an old-fashioned Methodist church, only there are
minarets at the four corners. It looks like a pall. Every year they