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the Ambassador of France to Persia, a rationalist, but a sincere and good observer, says that everybody in Persia, the Musselmans as well as the rest, assured him that the Nossayris, one of the principal sects in Persia, perform the following marvels. They fill with fire a large brazier in the middle of the room, and whilst a musician plays the târ, a little drum, also called dombeck, the Nossayri approaches the fire. He is agitated, he is exalted, he lifts his arms and eyes towards heaven with violent contortions. Then when he is excited to such a pitch that the perspiration pours from his face and from every part of his body, he seizes a burning coal and putting it in his mouth, blows it in such a manner that the flames issue from the nose. He receives no injury whatever from it. He then seats himself in the midst of the fire; the flames mount up and play in his beard, and caress without harming him. He is in the middle of the fire, and his dress does not burn; finally he lays himself down in the brazier, and receives no hurt from it. Others enter a baker's oven in full ignition, remain there as long as they like, and issue again without accident. What these people do with fire, others do with the air. They throw themselves from rocks with their wives and children, without receiving any damage, from whatscever height they fall. This is the manner in which a Purzadeh, or descendant of a Pur, explained these extraordinary phenomena: "Since," he said "everything in nature is God, so everything contains, secretly but plenarily the omnipotence of God. Faith only is necessary to put in motion and make apparent this power. Therefore, the more intense and complete the faith, the more marvellous will be the effects produced. It is not merely from the air and the fire that we can draw prodigies, but from objects in appearance the most contemptible. If we wish to call our interior virtue, whatever it may be, into action, we have only to apply the irresistible instrument of faith, and then, nothing is impossible. Such are the ideas of the Nossayris.

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A great number of travellers in different countries of the East relate similar things, but we confine ourselves to recent facts, often repeated and easily proved. In her Souvenirs de Voyages en Asie Mineure et en Syrie, published in Paris in 1858, the Princesse de Belgiojoso, relates the following facts, observed by herself in 1852, amongst the Dervishes of Angora:

"One fine morning, as reclining on my divan, I endeavoured, but in vain, to shake off the stupor and headache caused by the fumes of charcoal which issued from a metal stove, and circulated through my closed room, I saw enter a little old man in a white mantle, with a grey beard, a pointed cap of grey felt surrounded by a turban of green; he had a lively eye, and a countenance frank and good natured. The old man announced himself as the

chief of certain Dervishes, performers of miracles, whom the grand Muphti had sent to show me their operations. I offered him my warmest thanks, and expressed myself perfectly ready to witness the spectacle which they proposed. The old man opened the door, made a sign, and quickly re-appeared, followed by his disciples.

"They were eight in number, and I must confess, that if I had met them on my journey, at the corner of a wood, their appearance would have given me little pleasure. Their clothes were in rags, their long beards untrimmed, their visages pale, their forms emaciated, a something indescribably ferocious and haggard in their eyes, all which contrasted singularly with the open, smiling countenance and somewhat gay costume of their chief. These men on entering prostrated themselves before him, made me a polite obeisance, and seated themselves at a distance, awaiting the orders of the old man, who, on his part, awaited mine. I experienced a degree of embarrassment, which would have been still more painful had the séance been of my own ordering. Happily I was perfectly innocent, and this consideration gave me a little self-composure, but I did not dare to make the sign for commencement of, I did not know what. I expected a scene of the grossest imposition, which I should be obliged to applaud out of politeness, and of which I must show myself a dupe out of good breeding.

"I caused coffee to be served, to gain time, but the chief only accepted it. The disciples excused themselves, alleging the seriousness of the trials to which they were about to submit themselves. I gazed at them; they were serious as men who expected the visit of a host or rather of a revered master. After a short silence, the old man asked me if these children might begin, and I replied that it rested entirely with themselves. Taking my answer as an encouragement, he made a sign, and one of the Dervishes arose; he then prostrated himself before his chief and kissed the earth: the chief placed his hands on his head as if to give his benediction, and spoke some words in a low voice, which I did not understand. Then arising, the Dervish put off his mantle, his goatskin fur, and receiving a long poignard from one of his companions, the handle of which was ornamented with little bells, he placed himself in the middle of the apartment. Calm and self-collected at first, he became animated by degrees from the force of an interior action. His breast swelled, his nostrils expanded, and his eyes rolled in their sockets with a singular rapidity. This transformation was accompanied and aided, without doubt, by the music and the songs of the other Dervishes, who, having commenced by a monotonous recitative, passed quickly into modulated cries and yells, to

which the regular beating of a tambourine gave a certain measure. When the musical fever attained its paroxysm the first Dervish alternately raised and let fall the arm which held the poignard, without being conscious of these movements, and as if moved by a foreign force. A convulsive twitching pervaded his limbs, and he united his voice with those of his confréres whom he soon reduced to the humble rôle of assistants, so much did his cries exceed theirs. Dancing was then added to the music, and the protagonist Dervish executed such amazing leaps that the perspiration ran down his naked figure.

It was the moment of inspiration.' Brandishing the dagger, which he never abandoned, and every motive of which had made the little bells resound, then, extending his arm and suddenly retracting it, he plunged the dagger into his cheek so deep that the point appeared in the inside of his mouth. The blood rushed in torrents from both apertures of the wound, and I could not restrain a motion of my hand to put an end to this terrible scene.

"Madame wishes to look a little closer?" said the old man, observing me attentively. Making a sign for the wounded man to draw near, he made me observe that the point of the dagger had really passed through the cheek, and he would not be satisfied till I had touched the point with my finger.

"You are satisfied that the wound of this man is real?' he said to me. I have no doubt of it,' I replied, emphatically.

"That is enough. My son,' he added to the Dervish, who remained during the examination with his mouth open, filled with blood, and the dagger still in the wound, go, and be healed.'

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"The Dervish bowed, drew out the dagger, and turning to one of his companions, knelt and presented his cheek, which this man washed within and without with his own saliva. The operation continued some seconds, but when the wounded man rose, and turned to one side, every trace of the wound had disappeared.

Another Dervish made a wound in his arm, under the same ceremonies, which was healed in the same manner. A third terrified me. He was armed with a great crooked sabre, which he seized with his hands at the two extremities, and applying the edge of the concave side to his stomach caused it to enter as he executed a see-saw motion. A purple line instantly shewed itself on his brown and shining skin, and I entreated the old man to allow it to proceed no further. He smiled, assuring me that I had seen nothing, that this was only the prologue; that these children cut off their limbs with impunity, their heads, if necessary, without causing themselves any inconvenience. I

believe he was contented with me, and judged me worthy to witness their miracles, by which I was not particularly flattered.

"But the fact is, I remained pensive and confused. What was that? My eyes, had they not seen them? My hands, had they not touched them? Had not the blood flowed? I called to mind all the tricks of our most celebrated prestidigitateurs, but I found nothing to be compared with what I had seen. I had had to do with men simple and ignorant to excess; their movements were made with the utmost simplicity, and displayed not a trace of artifice. I do not pretend to have seen a miracle, and I state faithfully a scene which I for my part know not how to explain. The next day Dr. Petracchi, for many years the English Consul at Angora, related many such marvels, and assured me that the Dervishes possessed natural, or rather supernatural secrets, by which they accomplished prodigies equal to those of the priests of Egypt.

M. Adalbert de Beaumont who visited Asia Minor, in 1852, asserts the reality of the same wonders as the Countess de Belgiojoso. He says when the dancing Dervishes have reached the paroxysm of their excitement, they seize on iron red hot, bite it, hold it between their teeth, and extinguish it with their tongues. Others take knives and large needles, and pierce their sides, arms, and legs; the wounds of which immediately heal, and leave no trace.

The same astonishing manifestations take place amongst the Aissaouas of Algeria. General Dumas in his work entitled La Kabylie, published in Paris by Hachette in 1857, gives many strange traits of the Zaouias, and believes them to be a remnant of the ancient Christian ascetics of the deserts of the Thebaid. Colonel Neveu in his work on the Khouans, was an eye-witness amongst the Aissouas:-"Seven musicians, beating Basque drums, produced a monotonous noise, which no doubt contributed to the excitement of the performers. In the middle of the place, which was kept clear, was a brazier, at which a negro was posted to keep up the fire. From time to time they threw into it incense and powdered aloes. Five or six men clad in bernouses, reclined around the furnace inhaling the aromatic odours, intended to act on the brain, and to produce exaltation. All at once, one of these men raised himself suddenly, and gave vent to guttural sounds, like those of a door which creaks on its hinges, or of a cat miawling. Without ceasing his cries, and conducting himself like an epileptic, the inspired man fell into the arms of a sort of camel-driver appointed to receive the illluminés in the first agitations of the Divine Spirit. The illuminé being then clothed in a sacred vestment brought by the hierophant, went off into a wild dance."

This dance was kept up frantically until the man fell exhausted, and others successively went through the same process, and were laid down by him. "The drum having made a pause, the chief Aissaoua, seized a branch of cactus resembling in shape the wooden beater of a French laundress, bristled with spines like a branch of a gooseberrybush, thicker than a hand and as large as two hands. He rolled with delight his face on this spiny leaf, and then devoured it with avidity, manifesting the joy of a gourmand over a delicious meat. This delicacy despatched, he was presented with an iron shovel, large and intensely red hot. We felt the heat and saw its fiery glow as it was taken from the brazier. The chief Aissaoua seized it, and began embracing it in the reddest part. He then commenced licking it from end to end, putting out his tongue to its full extent, and passing it over the surface of the burning iron as a child over a paper of adhesive comfits. After this, removing it from his face, he tapped it repeatedly and slowly, and began to describe on it with his finger-end cabalistic signs. At the second sign, one of his nails, probably longer than his finger-end, met the fire and burnt, contrary to the programme, for an odour of burnt horn arose like that from the shoeing of a horse; a proof of the real heat of the shovel. In the meantime, the shovel, still red-hot in the middle, began to darken on the edges; he took it in his teeth, and, on his knees, holding his head in the manner of a dog which 'sets game, offered it to his guardian."

After this exhibition, others equally extraordinary took place. A very sharp sabre was held up in the air by two strong men, edge upwards, and two Aissaouas naked, and in succession, mounted on this edge, and threw themselves across it, the body balanced upon it, with the head hanging on one side and the feet on the other, without receiving any cut. Then another man, in a wild dance, thrust out one of his eyes with the end of a pole, and with the eye hanging down went on with his dance, and showed himself round to the horrified spectators. Put again into its socket, and the blood wiped away, the eye was all right and as well as the other.

Such are the liberties taken with matter by mediums in Eastern nations. It is clear that there are laws of matter utterly unknown to our physiologists, which these nations avail themselves of; for the facts are allowed by all travellers, and it could do our physicists no harm to enquire into them. It would be of immense benefit if our doctors, instead of stitching up wounds or binding them with adhesive plaister, could give them a gentle touch, and heal them instantly, as if they had never been. What a magnificent endowment on a field of battle! Yet in Europe, science not only looks contemptuously on such marvellous powers, but

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