DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0454
43G A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
changers sitting behind their little tables at the corners of
the streets; the same veiled ladies riding on donkeys and
driving in carriages; the same hurrying funerals and noisy
weddings; the same odd cries and motley costumes and
unaccustomed trades. Nothing was changed. We soon
dropped back into the old life of sight-seeing and shopping
—buying rngs and silks and silver ornaments and old
embroideries and Turkish slippers and all sorts of antiquo
and pretty trifles; going from Mohammedan mosques to
rare old Coptic churches; dropping in for an hour or two
most afternoons at the Boulak museum; and generally
ending the day's work with a drive on the Shubra road, or
a stroll round the Esbekiyeh gardens.
The Molid-cn-Nebi, or festival of the birth of the
prophet, was being held at this time in a tract of waste
ground on the road to old Cairo. Here, in some twenty or
thirty large open tents ranged in a circle, there were read-
ings of the Koran and meetings of dervishes going on by
day and night, without intermission, for nearly a fortnight.
After dark, when the tents were all ablaze with lighted
chandeliers, and the dervishes were howling and leaping,
and fire-works were being let off from an illuminated plat-
form in the middle of the area, the scene was extraordinary.
All Cairo used to be there, on foot or in carriages, between
eight o'clock and midnight every evening; the veiled ladies
of the khedive's hareem in their miniature broughams being
foremost among the spectators.
The Molid-en-Nebi ends with the performance of the
Doseh, when the sheik of the Saiidiyeh dervishes rides over
a road of prostrate fanatics. L------ and the writer wit-
nessed this sight from the tent of the Governor of Cairo.
Drunk with opium, fasting and praying, rolling their
heads and foaming at the month, some hundreds of
wretched creatures lay down in the road packed as close as
paving-stones, and were walked and ridden over before our
eyes. The standard-bearers came first; then a priest read-
ing the Koran aloud; then the sheik on his white Arab,
supported on either side by barefooted priests. The beauti-
ful horse trod with evident reluctance and as lightly and
swiftly as possible on the human causeway under his hoofs.
The Mohammedans aver that no one is injured or even
bruised* on this holy occasion; but I saw some men carried
* " It is said that these persons, as well as the sheik, make use of
changers sitting behind their little tables at the corners of
the streets; the same veiled ladies riding on donkeys and
driving in carriages; the same hurrying funerals and noisy
weddings; the same odd cries and motley costumes and
unaccustomed trades. Nothing was changed. We soon
dropped back into the old life of sight-seeing and shopping
—buying rngs and silks and silver ornaments and old
embroideries and Turkish slippers and all sorts of antiquo
and pretty trifles; going from Mohammedan mosques to
rare old Coptic churches; dropping in for an hour or two
most afternoons at the Boulak museum; and generally
ending the day's work with a drive on the Shubra road, or
a stroll round the Esbekiyeh gardens.
The Molid-cn-Nebi, or festival of the birth of the
prophet, was being held at this time in a tract of waste
ground on the road to old Cairo. Here, in some twenty or
thirty large open tents ranged in a circle, there were read-
ings of the Koran and meetings of dervishes going on by
day and night, without intermission, for nearly a fortnight.
After dark, when the tents were all ablaze with lighted
chandeliers, and the dervishes were howling and leaping,
and fire-works were being let off from an illuminated plat-
form in the middle of the area, the scene was extraordinary.
All Cairo used to be there, on foot or in carriages, between
eight o'clock and midnight every evening; the veiled ladies
of the khedive's hareem in their miniature broughams being
foremost among the spectators.
The Molid-en-Nebi ends with the performance of the
Doseh, when the sheik of the Saiidiyeh dervishes rides over
a road of prostrate fanatics. L------ and the writer wit-
nessed this sight from the tent of the Governor of Cairo.
Drunk with opium, fasting and praying, rolling their
heads and foaming at the month, some hundreds of
wretched creatures lay down in the road packed as close as
paving-stones, and were walked and ridden over before our
eyes. The standard-bearers came first; then a priest read-
ing the Koran aloud; then the sheik on his white Arab,
supported on either side by barefooted priests. The beauti-
ful horse trod with evident reluctance and as lightly and
swiftly as possible on the human causeway under his hoofs.
The Mohammedans aver that no one is injured or even
bruised* on this holy occasion; but I saw some men carried
* " It is said that these persons, as well as the sheik, make use of