After the departure of the moonshi bashi and his friends, by invitation I pay a visit of curiosity to a company of dervishes (they themselves pronounce it "darwish") occupying one of the caravanserai rooms. There are eight of them lolling about in one small room; their appearance is disgusting and yet interesting; they are all but naked in deference to the hot weather and to obtain a little relief from the lively tenants of their clothing.

Prominent among their effects are panther or leopard skins which they use as cloaks, small steel battle-axes, and huge spiked clubs. Their whole appearance is most striking and extraordinary; their long black hair is dangling about their naked shoulders; they have the wild, haggard countenances of men whose lives are being spent in debauchery and excesses; nevertheless, most of them have a decidedly intellectual expression.

The Persian dervishes are a strange and interesting people; they spend their whole lives in wandering from one end of the country to another, subsisting entirely by mendicancy; yet their cry, instead of a beggar's supplication for charity, is "huk, huk" (my right, my right); they affect the most wildly, picturesque and eccentric costumes, often wearing nothing whatever but white cotton drawers and a leopard or panther skin thrown, carelessly about their shoulders, besides which they carry a huge spiked club or steel battle-axe and an alms-receiver; this latter is usually made of an oval gourd, polished and suspended on small brass chains.

Sometimes they wear an embroidered conical cap decorated with verses from the Koran, but often they wear no head-gear save the covering provided by nature. The better-class Persians have little respect for these wandering fakirs; but their wild, eccentric appearance makes a deep impression upon the simple-hearted villagers, and the dervishes, whose wits are sharpened by constant knocking about, live mostly by imposing on their good nature and credulity. A couple of these worthies, arriving at a small village, affect their wildest and most grotesque appearance and proceed to walk with stately, majestic tread through the streets, gracefully brandishing their clubs or battle- axes, gazing fixedly at vacancy and reciting aloud from the Koran with a peculiar and impressive intonation; they then walk about the village holding out their alms-receiver and shouting "huk yah huk! huk yah huk " Half afraid of incurring their displeasure, few of the villagers refuse to contribute a copper or portable cooked provisions.

Most dervishes are addicted to the intemperate use of opium, bhang (a preparation of Indian hemp), arrack, and other baleful intoxicants, generally indulging to excess whenever they have collected sufficient money; they are likewise credited with all manner of debauchery; it is this that accounts for their pale, haggard appearance. The following quotation from "In the Land of the Lion and Sun," and which is translated from the Persian, is eloquently descriptive of the general appearance of the dervish: The dervish had the dullard air, The maddened look, the vacant stare, That bhang and contemplation give. He moved, but did not seem to live; His gaze was savage, and yet sad; What we should call stark, staring mad. All down his back, his tangled hair Flowed wild, unkempt; his head was bare; A leopard's skin was o'er him flung; Around his neck huge beads were hung, And in his hand-ah! there's the rub- He carried a portentous club.

After visiting the dervishes I spend an hour in an adjacent tchai- khan drinking tea with my escort and treating them to sundry well-deserved kalians. Among the rabble collected about the doorway is a half-witted youngster of about ten or twelve summers with a suit of clothes consisting of a waist string and a piece of rag about the size of an ordinary pen- wiper. He is the unfortunate possessor of a stomach disproportionately large and which intrudes itself upon other people's notice like a prize pumpkin at an agricultural fair. This youth's chief occupation appears to be feeding melon-rinds to a pet sheep belonging to the tchai-khan and playing a resonant tattoo on his abnormally obtrusive paunch with the palms of his hands. This produces a hollow, echoing sound like striking an inflated bladder with a stuffed club; and considering that the youth also introduces a novel and peculiar squint into the performance, it is a remarkably edifying spectacle.

Supper-time coming round, the soldiers show the way to an eating place, where we sup off delicious bazaar-kabobs, one of the most tasteful preparations of mutton one could well imagine. The mutton is minced to the consistency of paste and properly seasoned; it is then spread over flat iron skewers and grilled over a glowing charcoal fire; when nicely browned they are laid on a broad pliable sheet of bread in lieu of a plate, and the skewers withdrawn, leaving before the customer a dozen long flat fingers of nicely browned kabobs reposing side by side on the cake of wheaten bread-a most appetizing and digestible dish. Returning to the caravanserai, I dismiss my faithful soldiers with a suitable present, for which they loudly implore the blessings of Allah on my head, and for the third or fourth time impress upon the caravanseraijes the necessity of making my comfort for the night his special consideration. They fill that humble individual's mind with grandiloquent ideas of my personal importance by dwelling impressively on the circumstance of my having eaten with the Governor, a fact they likewise have lost no opportunity of heralding throughout the bazaar during the afternoon.

The caravanserai-jee spreads quilts and a pillow for me on the open bala-khana, and I at once prepare for sleep. A gentle-eyed and youthful seyud wearing an enormous white turban and a flowing gown glides up to my couch and begins plying me with questions. The soldiers noticing this as they are about leaving the court-yard favor him with a torrent of imprecations for venturing to disturb my repose; a score of others yell fiercely at him in emulation of the soldiers, causing the dreamy-eyed youth to hastily scuttle away again. Nothing is now to be heard all around but the evening prayers of the caravanserai guests; listening to the multitudinous cries of Allah-il-Allah around me, I fall asleep. About midnight I happen to wake again; everything is quiet, the stars are shining brightly down into the court-yard, and a small grease lamp is flickering on the floor near my head, placed there by the caravan-serai-jee after I had fallen asleep. The past day has been one full of interesting experiences; from the time of leaving the garden of Mohammed Ali Khan this morning in company with the moonshi bashi, until lulled to sleep three hours ago by the deep-voiced prayers of fanatical Mohammedans the day has proved a series of surprises, and I seem more than ever before to have been the sport and plaything of fortune; however, if the fickle goddess never used anybody worse than she has used me to-day there would be little cause for complaining.

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Adapted from Thomas Stevens, Around the World on a Bicycle