840 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



we were cooking our dinner. He wore a black cloak with a high col- 

 lar which somewhat concealed the absence of a beard, for his face 

 resembled that of a sick old woman. He seemed, however, to be a 

 person of considerable information, for he inquired after the state of 

 affairs in Fan-Khundistan, mentioning the name of the sheik and his 

 chief counselor. " Where have you left your companion ? " * he 

 asked, after I had answered his first questions. 



I understood that he referred to Ben Khelpus, and told him under 

 what circumstances we had parted from that pious pilgrim. 



The stranger smiled. " That fellow," said he, " belongs to the 

 sect of the Tripilates, so called from the triple hat of their chief imam. 

 You have acted wisely ; your appearance is that of a learned stranger, 

 and I marveled to see you in the company of that man." 



" You do not belong to his sect, then ? " I inquired. 



" Yesha forbid ! " said he ; " there are many kinds of superstitious 

 people in this country, but the Tripilates are the worst. They pay 

 divine honors to countless unworthy servants of Allah, while we con- 

 tine our worship to his nearest relatives. As for myself, I profess the 

 creed of the Thumpers, f who were the first to secede from the com- 

 munity of the Tripilates. Our dervishes derive their authority from 

 the first chief imam, whose sacred slap of approval encouraged his 

 successor to continue the work of the Lord. If you come to Kapeebad 

 you will find that nearly all the respectable people belong to our sect. 

 The superstition of the Tripilates," he added, " prevails only in the 

 southern valleys ; theirs is a grossly corrupt form of the Yeshanee 

 faith, while ours is a pure and refined doctrine." He stopped and put 

 his hand to his breast to attest the superior sanctity of his creed, as 

 I supposed, till I saw that he was rubbing his stomach. " I do not 

 feel well this evening," said he, " I have eaten three pounds of fat 

 hog-flesh, and I fear that it was not properly fried." 



My amazement at these words increased when we soon after reached 

 the top of a hill where the ground was thickly covered with chestnuts 

 and beechnuts, which, as the Karman informed me, are despised by 

 the Monakees, and serve only to fatten the animals whose mention has 

 already thrice defiled these pages, and whose flesh, as a means of sus- 

 tenance, a proper person would hardly prefer to the pangs of actual 

 starvation. 



While we rested a few minutes, a swarm of wild pigeons alighted 

 in the trees, and almost in the same moment an arrow whizzed from a 

 thicket of brambles, and one of the birds fell fluttering to the ground. 

 The hunter was a bottle-nosed old man, with a perceptible smell of 

 rakee about him, but the workmanship of his cross-bow once more con- 

 vinced me that it has pleased Allah to endow these people with a won- 



* "Prophet," W. By the omission of a letter and the misplacing of a diacritical 

 point, nedeem (boon companion) in the Tunisian edition may have been converted into 

 nedyeh, prophet or embassador. f Tocadores (R.), Klopfer (W.) Slappers or Thumpers. 



