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Rh feet orator of his day.&quot; Even higher was the opinion of Lord Aberdeen, who is reported by the Times to have said that no one of the giants he had listened to in his youth, Pitt, Fox, Burke, or Sheridan, &quot; as a speaker, is to be compared with our own Lord Derby, when Lord Derby is at his best.&quot; (w. B. s.)

 DEREYEH, or, a town of Arabia, in the Nejd, on the caravan-route from the Tied Sea to the Persian Gulf, about 15 miles west of Riad. It was formerly the capital of the Wahabees, and had a population of about 30,000 inhabitants; but it has never recovered from the ruin inflicted on it by the army of Ibrahim Pasha in 1818.

 DERHAM, WILLIAM (1657-1735), an eminent English divine and natural philosopher, was born at Stoughton, near Worcester, in 1657. He received his early educa tion at Blockley, in his native county, and in 1679 graduated with much distinction at Trinity College, Oxford. Three years later he became vicar of Wargrave, in Berkshire; and in 1689 he was preferred to the living of Upminster, in Essex. In 1696 he published his Artificial Clockmaker, which went through several editions. The best known of his subsequent works are Physwo-Theology, published in 1713; Astro- Theology, 1714; and Christo-Theology, 1730. In consideration of these contributions to science and theology he was, in 1716, made a canon of Windsor; and in 1730 he received the degree of D.D. from Oxford. His last work, entitled A Defence of the Church s Right in Leasehold Estates, appeared four years previous to his death, which happened in 1735. Besides the works published in his own name, Derham contributed a variety of papers to the Philosophical Transactions, revised the Miscellanea Curiosa, edited the correspondence of John Ray, and Albin s Natural History, and published some of the MSS. of Hooke, the natural philosopher.

 DERVISH is a Persian word meaning &quot; the sill of the door,&quot; or those who beg from door to door. The Arabic equivalent is fakir, or fuqueer. The dervishes of tliQ Turkish empire may be said to constitute the regular religious orders, and are distinguished from the ulemas, or secular clergy. In Turkey, Egypt, Persia, Hindustan, and Central Asia, however, dervishes, or fakirs, are to be found in great number who belong to no society, but are simply mendicants or single devotees, many of whom subsist by professional jugglery. Especially is this true of the Byragis, the Dundis, the Bhikshooks, the Wanuprusts, the Sunyasis, the Aghorpunts, the Gosaens, the Jogis, the Oodassis, the Jutis, and the Lingaet Jungums of northern Hindustan, and still more emphatically of the Bonzes, or Buddhist monks. But in the more favourable sense of the word, the dervishes represent Sofism, or the spiritual and mystic side of Islam. Long before the time of Mahomet, Arabic thought was divided, as if by Greek and Indian influences, into the schools of the Meschaiouns (the walkers) and the Ischracha iouns (the contemplators). When the Koran appeared, these became the Mutekelim (meta physicians), and the Softs (mystics). The latter put an esoteric interpretation on both the Koran and the Hadisat, or collected sayings of the Prophet-; they dispense with the jemaat and other formalities of the mosque; they in many cases recognize the fact of spiritual religion outside Islam; and in general they observe the rules of poverty, abstinence from wine, and celibacy. The name fakir, indeed, comes from the saying of the Prophet, &quot; El fakr fakhri,&quot; poverty is my pride. The six Erkian, or pillars of the Tesavvuf, or spiritual life, are (1) the existence of God, (2) His unity, (3) the angels, (4) the prophets, (5) the day of resurrection, and (6) good and evil through God s predestination. But it is only the Tarikats, or orders (lit. paths), among the more orthodox or Sunnite Mahometans who attach much importance to positive dogma. The Shiite party, especially the Persian dervishes, who trace their descent through various sheikhs and peers from Ali, the fourth caliph, believe that &quot; the paths leading to God are as many as the breaths of his creatures.&quot; These form the great majority of the orders; for it is stated in a work called the Sitsileh ul Evlia Ullah (Genealogy of the Saints of God), last edited in 1783, that, out of 36 well- defined orders, 12 of which were in existence before the beginning of the Ottoman empire, only 3, viz., the Bestamis, the .Nakshibendis, and the Bektashis, are descended from the congregation of Abu Bekr, the second caliph, and that all the others are descended from the caliph Ali. As the dervishes do not recognize the legal exposition which the ordinary tribunals give of the letter of the Koran, and acknowledge no authority but that of their spiritual guide, or of Allah himself speaking directly to their souls, the Ottoman sultans have always regarded them with jealousy; and in 1826 Mahmoud entirely suppressed the order of the Bektashis, which had for centuries been closely connected with the Janissaries, or Hoo Keshans (him scatterers), and which is said to have formed part of a Fermason (freemasonry) extending through Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. 1 The other orders, however, or most of them, have survived to the present day, and are generally popular, one of them, the Mevlevis, being joined by persons from the highest and wealthiest ranks. But membership, when it does not proceed beyond the first stage of Shi at or Sher iat, i.e., legal religion under the supervision of a murshid, 2 may be satisfied by the repeti tion of a few prayers at home and the wearing of the sacred cap for a few minutes each day. The regular dervishes live in tekkiehs, khanakahs, or con vents, which are endowed with lands or wakf, just as the Muths of Hindustan are endowed with enam lands, incapable of mortgage or alienation. Thus, in 1634, the sultan Amurath IV. gave to the Bektashis of Konieh the whole tribute paid by that city. Over each convent presides a sheikh, or murshid, who represents the pir, or original founder of the order. This corresponds to the mohunt, malik, or guru of Hindustan. Among the Persian Nosairis (who consider Mahomet an impostor, and perform no ablutions), the succession of sheikhs is hereditary else where by seniority or election, confirmed by the Sheikh ul Islam. In Hindustan the selection takes place in a dusname, or council of mohunts, called among the Sikhs a muta. The murid, or disciple, has to undergo a long initiation (called in Turkey Ikrar, in Egypt Ahd) before he obtains the taybend, or woollen belt, with its palenk or cabalistic &quot; stone of contentment; &quot; the mengusay, or ear rings shaped like the horse shoe of Ali; the khirka, or mantle; the tesbeeh, or rosary, containing the ismi jelal, or the 99 beautiful names of God; and finally the taj, or white cap, with the proper number of terks, or sections, belonging to the order. Similar distinctions are preserved in Hindustan by the barbarous method of marking on the forehead the sandal-wood stripes of Siva, or the white and red trident of Vishnu. In the Mevlevi order the murid goes through 1001 days of menial labour, and is during that time called the karra kolak, or jackal. It is not necessary, however, to give up one s private property; and many dervishes are permitted to remain in trade on the 1 This jealousy was not without foundation. The great political factions which disturbed Constantinople, the Reds, the Whites, the Masked, the Intimates, the Interpreters, the Hashashins (from Hashish, whence assassins), were to some extent connected with the dervish orders. The Kalenderis, founded by an Audalusian dervish who was expelled from the Bektashis, furnished several pretenders to the title of Mehdee, the 12th imam, whose second coining is looked for by all the mystics. 2 The subsequent stages are Tarikat, mystical rites, Mearifat, know , ledge, and Hakikat. truth. 