hes, passing part of the night in solitude, reciting prayers and
passages of the Koran, went to the mosque, preached and said the noonday
prayer; then, mounting his horse, proceeded to the Ezbekeeyeh. Many
darweeshes with flags accompanied him to the house of the Sheykh of all
the darweeshes where he stayed for some time, whilst his followers were
engaged in packing the bodies of those who wished to be trampled under
the hoofs of the Sheykh's horse as closely together as they could in the
middle of the road. Some eighty or a hundred, or more men lay side by
side flat on the ground on their stomachs muttering, Allah Allah! and to
try if they were packed close enough about twenty darweeshes ran over
their backs, beating little drums and shouting Allah! and now and then
stopping to arrange an arm or leg. Then appeared the Sheykh, his horse
led by two grooms, while two more rested their hands on his croup. By
much pulling and pushing they at last induced the snorting, frightened
beast to amble quickly over the row of prostrate men. The moment the
horse had passed the men sprang up, and followed the Sheykh over the
bodies of the others. It was said that on the day before the Doseh they,
and the Sheykh, repeated certain prayers which prevented the horse's
hoofs from hurting them, and that sometimes a man, overcome by religious
enthusiasm, had thrown himself down with the rest and been seriously
hurt, or even killed.

{315} Mohammed Ali Pasha, who was an illiterate coffee-house keeper in
Salonica, first came to Egypt at the head of a body of Albanians and
co-operated with the English against the French. By his extraordinary
vigour and intelligence he became the ruler of Lower Egypt, and succeeded
in attaching the Mameluke Beys to his person. But finding that they were
beginning to chafe under his firm rule, he invited them, in 1811, to a
grand dinner in the Citadel of Cairo. The gates were closed, and
suddenly fire was opened upon them from every side. Only one man, Elfy
Bey, spurred his horse and jumped over the battlements into the square
below (some 80 or 90 feet). His horse was killed and he broke his leg,
but managed to crawl to a friend's house and was saved. This same Elfy
Bey, on the death of Abbas Pasha, held the Citadel for his son, El Hamy,
against his uncle, Said Pasha, and it was only by the intervention of the
English Consul-General, who rode up to the Citadel, that Elfy was induced
to acknowledge Sai