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ORDERS OF HOLY MEN IN JERUSALEM.

Solomon's pools. Above Deir el Benât, Sheikh Ethman and six Urtâs people were hidden behind the rocks, and all of a sudden jumped out shouting and swinging swords, and frightened the two gendarmes accompanying the murderer. Feigning to be the avengers trying to kill the convict, they cut loose the handcuffs and set him free. Not long afterwards an officer and twelve gendarmes came to Urtâs. All the culprits, except Sheikh Ethman, had left the village and hidden in the cave of Khureitûn. The officer did not care for his holiness, and began administering a flogging, whereupon the sheikh seized an opportunity of slipping away. This occurred in 1881, and since then the sheikh has lost a good deal of his esteem both in the country and in towns.

Different districts have sheikhs of this class, of more or less sanctity, but these do not belong to the Orders, but are hereditary sheikhs, like Sheikh Ibrahim Nasr, of Kŭryet el 'Enab, already mentioned. The Rubin Bedawîn, too, have a hereditary family of Derwishes, descendants of the Sheikh Zooeied, شيخ زوييد‎. Their sanctity is of a quiet kind. Hamed, a Derwish, was cheated by his partner, but Sheikh Zooeied took revenge and struck the wife of, the cheat with insanity. A Bedawy told me that one day, running through the Rubin marshes, where there are plenty of buffaloes, a buffalo all at once pursued him, and would have gored him to death had he not taken his gun and aimed at the animal, at the same time crying to the sheikh, "Yellah, ya Sheikh Zooeied," ياله يا شيخ زوييد‎, when suddenly the animal stood still, looked at him, and turned away.

A Derwishá (female Derwish), living at Sîdna 'Ali, north of Jaffa, with a green head-dress and veil, is consecrated as the prophet's foal, مهرة النبي‎. Her way of begging or asking alms consists simply in neighing just as a young foal would, never saying any more.[1] She can

  1. [Note by Dr. Chaplin.—Once when I was at Sîdna 'Ali (el Haram) this young woman came into our camp. She was suffering from a peculiar nervous affection, not very uncommon among girls born in Palestine, which seems to compel those labouring under it to go about imitating the sounds made by animals. I knew one girl who rendered her presence almost unendurable to her family by constantly making a sound like a goose, or a donkey, or some other creature. She was cured by being taken to spend three nights in Elijah's cave on Mount Carmel. On the third night a venerable old man appeared to her, placed his hand on her head, and said (in the Arabic language), "Fear not, my daughter, fear not, thou wilt be healed." And healed she was. The old man was, of course, the prophet Elijah. Insane people are sometimes treated—or used some years ago to be treated—in a similar way, being shut up in the vaults under the Haram area at Jerusalem, or chained to a pillar in the church at el Khŭdr, or sent to the cave of Elijah. It is said that benefit is often derived from this method of treatment; the awful sacredness of the place, the silence, the solitude, producing a kind of shock to the nervous system which proves beneficial. The remedy is akin to the sudden fright which cures hiccup,