Let us not forget to mention a brief visit to those strange fanatics, the whirling dervishes, in witnessing whose singular movements one is at a loss whether to sigh or to laugh. To the young the performance suggests that of the circus, and until wearied of the monotony of it, is perhaps as amusing; but to this more thoughtful observer it is melancholy to see men so debase themselves. The ring in which these people whirl about was full of deluded men, on the day of our visit, self-proclaimed disciples. About twenty of them commenced at a signal to turn rapidly about on their heels and toes, without a moment's pause, for a period of some thirty or forty minutes, to the monotonous notes of a fife and a sort of Chinese tom-tom, until finally their brains became addled, and they fell to the ground in a species of trance, their active devotion being supposed to have thus successfully terminated. The howling dervishes, seen in another temple, form a different branch of a similar style of worship or fanaticism; if possible, still more senseless than that already described. The bodily motion of the howlers is different, and is accompanied by a hoarse, disagreeable howling, like that of a pack of half-starved wolves, except that it is done to a certain musical accompaniment, enabling the participants to keep time, both as to the motion of the body and the hideous noise which they make. The motion is that of throwing the head and upper portion of the body forward, and bringing it back with a sudden jerk, which would, under ordinary circumstances, break a man's neck, but these creatures are used to it. The dervishes wear their hair long, which adds to their crazy appearance, by covering their faces with it during the jerking process, the hair flying back and forth with each movement. What the ecstatic point is in this ridiculous performance was not apparent, and they did not tumble down overcome by unconsciousness. It is supposed that all travelers visit them, but we came away more punished than entertained or interested in the senseless exhibition.
A week was all too brief a period to pass in the Queen City of the East, but at its close we started by rail for Ismailia, the little town which is located exactly midway on the great canal between the two seas, at the Bitter Lakes, through which the canal runs. It is a pretty and attractive place of four or five thousand inhabitants, and is a creation of the last sixteen years. Here we observed gardens filled with flowers and fruit trees; vegetation being in its most verdant dress, promoted by irrigation from the neighboring fresh-water canal. The place has broad macadamized streets, and a capacious central square ornamented with large and thrifty trees. It was here that the representatives of all nations met on the occasion of the inauguration ceremony on the completion of De Lesseps' grand canal. We took a small mail steamer at Ismailia through the western half of the canal to Port Said, which is the Mediterranean terminus of the great artificial river. It was a night trip, but had it been by daylight would have afforded us no views. We passed onward between two lofty hills of sand, the sky only visible overhead, and no vegetation whatever in sight; no birds, no animals, nothing to vary the monotony, but an occasional dredging machine, when we stopped at what are called watering-stations. The reader needs hardly to be told that this successful enterprise of cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Suez has proved a vast and increasing advantage to the commerce of the world. Large as it is, and under the best of management, it has already proved insufficient for the business which it has created, rendering a second parallel water-way imperatively necessary, plans for which are now under consideration. At present, so large is the demand upon its facilities that "blocks" and serious delays are of daily occurrence. That there will be ample and remunerative business for two canals is easily demonstrable by the statistics of the original company, which show a most remarkable annual increase. It is a singular fact worthy of mention, that, with all our modern improvements and progressive ideas, the Egyptians were centuries before us in this plan of shortening the path of commerce between the East and the West, or, in other words, of connecting the Red Sea with that of the Mediterranean across the Isthmus and through the Gulf of Suez.