Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/264

 be found in that ring of squatting and swaying devotees who have chosen their "pitch" in the south-east corner of the mosque, on the same side of it as the great tomb of Mohammed Ali. For those—and they probably form a majority of the foreign visitors — who have on some previous day hurried over their lunch in order to hear the so-called "Howling Dervishes" give what has been irreverently described as "their celebrated farmyard imitation," this performance in the mosque may fail to prove a "draw."

The spectacle is to be witnessed down at the Kasr-el-Ain Mosque in Old Cairo—and is variously reported upon by some as "an extraordinary sight which I would not have missed for anything," by others as "a disgusting exhibition that no one should look at who desires to retain a spark of respect for human nature" and by yet others, as contemptuously and more concisely, as "the biggest fraud in Egypt"—it is at least unique in its kind. Even if it be to a certain extent