650 



DERWENT WATER DESAULT. 



of the candidate, who is sometimes kept for a whole 

 year under this kind of discipline. In the order of 

 the Mevlevics. the novice perfects his spiritual know- 

 ledge iii the kitchen of the convent. 



Dancing, or something like it, forms an essential 

 part of the duties of some of the orders. The dances 

 of the greater numl>er are called devr (circle), because 

 they consist in a movement forwards of the right 

 foot, acccmpaniedwith violent contortions of the body, 

 all tin- performers joining Iiand in hand and standing 

 in a circle. The longer the dance, and the louder the 

 shout of Ya Hu, or Ya Allah, the greater is the me- 

 rit : tliese exercises are therefore often persevered in 

 till a fainting fit or spitting of blood concludes the 

 exhibition. The exhibitions of the Rufaries are the 

 longest and most comprehensive of all. Towards the 

 close of them, the performers are worked up into a 

 sort of freniy. Previous to tliis time, two of the der- 

 vises put spits, swords, daggers, &c., into the fire, 

 that i hey may be presented red hot to the sheikh or 

 chief, when the excitement reaches its highest pitch. 

 The sheikh blows upon them, just touches them with 

 his mouth, and delivers them to the most eager of the 

 fraternity : they are seized, licked, gnawed, and held 

 in the mouth till the glow disappears. Others of the 

 fraternity seize the swords, cutlasses, &c., which are 

 lianging on the walls of the room, and slash their 

 sides, anus, and legs, unmercifully. The sheikh con- 

 cludes the whole by going round, examining the 

 wounds, blowing upon them, and anointing them with 

 his saliva, which, together with a few prayers, effects 

 a cure in twenty-four hours ' The sheiklis of all 

 orders have the credit of possessing miraculous 

 1 owers. The interpretation of dreams, the cure of 

 diseases, and the removal of barrenness, are the gifts 

 for which the dervises are most in repute. 



DEKWENT WATER, or the Lake of Keswick ; 

 a beautiful lake in the county of Cumberland, Eng- 

 land, in the vale of Keswick, lying between the moun- 

 tain of Skiddaw on the north, and the craggy hills of 

 Borrowdale on the south, whence it derives its chief 

 supplies of water. This lake, considered to be the 

 finest in the north of England, is about three miles in 

 length, and one and a half in breadth. 



DESAIX DE VOYGOUX, Louis CHARLES AN- 

 TOIXE. a French general, who distinguished himself 

 in the revolutionary war, was born in 1768, at St 

 Hilaire d'Ayat, of a noble family, and entered the 

 regiment of Bretagne, in 1784, as under-lieutenant. 

 He contributed, December 1793, to the capture of 

 the Haguenau lines, which the left wing, where he 

 was stationed, first broke through. He served, in 

 1794, in the northern army, under Pichegru, and 

 repeatedly distinguished himself. Attached to the 

 army of the Rhine, under Moreau, 1796, he defended 

 the bridge of Kehl in November of that year. In 

 1797, he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, contri- 

 buted to his first victory, and was thence sent to the 

 conquest of Upper Egypt, where Murad Bey, not- 

 withstanding his defeat, incessantly harassed his con- 

 queror. Bonaparte soon returned to Europe^ as did 

 Desaix himself, after the treaty of El-Arish, con- 

 cluded by him with the Turks and English. On his 

 arrival in France, he learned that Bonaparte had 

 departed for Italy, hastened to join him. and took 

 command of the corps of reserve. A third part of 

 the French army was already disabled, when De- 

 saix's corps' arrived (June 14, 1800) on the field of 

 Maiengo (q. v.). He immediately advanced to the 

 charge, but fell, mortally wounded by a cannon ball, 

 jusl as victory declared for the French. His body 

 was carried to Milan, embalmed, and conveyed to 

 the hospitium on the St Bernard, where a monument 

 is erected- to him. (See Bernard. St.) Another 

 inonument, erected to him on the plains of Marengo, 



where he fell, was destroyed by the Austrians in 

 1814. Desaix was as just and disinterested as Ke 

 was brave. The inhabitants of Cairo gave him the 

 title of the just sultan. 



DESATIR is a lately discovered collection of six- 

 teen sacred books, consisting of the fifteen old Per- 

 sian prophets, together with a book of Zoroaster. 

 This, at least, is what the book itself pretends to be. 

 The collection is written in a language not spoken 

 at present anywhere, and equally different from the 

 Zend, the Pelvi, and modern Persian. The last of 

 the fifteen prophets, Sasan, who lived at the time ol 

 the downfall of the Sassanides, when the Aral)ian> 

 conquered the country, literally translated the Dcsu- 

 tir. and accompanied it with commentaries. This 

 work was afterwards, until the seventeenth century, 

 one of the chief sources of the ancient Persian reli- 

 gious doctrines, interwoven with astrology and de- 

 monology ; and, after having been forgotten for 

 about a century and a half, a learned Parsee dis- 

 covered it at Ispahan. His son, Molla Firuz, was 

 induced by the marquis of Hastings to publish an 

 edition of the Desatir at Bombay, in 1820, to which 

 Erskine added an English translation. Erskine, 

 however, considers the collection as spurious ; and 

 Sylvester de Sacy (Journal des Savants, February, 

 1821,) believes that the Desatir is the work of a Par- 

 see in the fourth century of the Hegira, who, as he 

 thinks, invented the language, in order to give to the 

 collection, which is itself an assemblage of old tra- 

 ditions and significant mysteries, an air of genuine- 

 ness. Joseph von Hammer, on the contrary, is said 

 to consider it as genuine. At all events, it is inte- 

 resting to learn from this work, with greater accu- 

 racy, an old religious system of the East, in which 

 are to be found, with pandaemonism and the metem- 

 psychosis, the elements of the worship of the stars, of 

 astrology, the theurgy, the doctrine of amulets, as 

 well as the elements of the Hindoo religion, particu- 

 larly the system of castes, and many elements of the 

 Christian religion. Yet no trace of any connexion 

 with the Zendavesta and the magic of the Parsees lias 

 been found in the Desatir. 



DESAULT, PETER JOSEPH ; one of the most cele- 

 brated surgeons of France, was born February 6, 

 1744, at Magny-Vernais, in the former Franche- 

 Comte. He was designed for the church, early 

 studied mathematics and philosophy, and was led by 

 his inclination to the surgical profession ; in conse- 

 quence of which he entered the military hospital at 

 Befort, where his diligence and talent for observa- 

 tion supplied the defects of a suitable instruction ; 

 and his situation was favourable for obtaining a know- 

 ledge of the treatment of wounds from fire-arms, in 

 which department he afterwards rose to great emi- 

 nence. He went to Paris in 1764, and was one of 

 the numerous scholars of the celebrated Petit. Two 

 years afterwards, he became a lecturer, and, though 

 his delivery was bad, he soon became celebrated by 

 introducing a new method of teaching anatomy. 

 While lecturing on the parts of the human body, he 

 treated of the diseases incident to each. After hav- 

 ing been several years principal surgeon of the hos- 

 pital de la charite, where he increased his reputa- 

 tion by introducing new methods of treatment, or by 

 improving and simplifying those already in use, he 

 was put at the head of the great HoteLDieu m Paris, 

 in 1788. Here he founded a surgical school, in 

 which have been educated many of the most eminent 

 surgeons of Europe. His principal merits were, that 

 he brought accuracy and method into the study of sur- 

 gery ; improved the treatment of fractured bones, by 

 adopting improved bandages ; first introduced into 

 France the clinical method of instruction in surgery ; 

 and infused into liis scholars a generous attachment 





