402 Notes on Sport and Travel iv 



startle one, two men bounced up from the floor with 

 fearful yells, their faces, necks, and eyes engorged 

 with blood, their lips working, and the thin foam 

 appearing from between them in what, if wholly 

 simulated, was the most perfectly imitated attack of 

 sudden epileptic mania I ever saw. The moment 

 they were on their legs they were laid hold of by 

 the attendants behind, their skull-caps taken off, a 

 long white garment slipped over their heads, and 

 their long top-knots (and I was surprised to see 

 what a quantity of hair these apparently shaven 

 Moors carried under their fez) unwound and tossed 

 in admired disorder about their necks and faces. 

 Wrapped up as to their arms in the above-mentioned 

 cloths, they looked like lunatics suffering from a 

 severe relapse at the moment they were being 

 shaved. They danced, they yelled, at first in 

 cadence, and afterwards in short spasmodic howls ; 

 they jumped, they hopped, they kicked, they made 

 as if they were going to plunge head foremost into 

 the brazier ; and at last began to spin their heads 

 round and round upon their shoulders with a velocity 

 that threatened to send them off into infinite space, 

 with an initial velocity highly dangerous to the by- 

 standers. Knavery or not, it was a really strange 

 and wild scene. Whenever they seemed on the 

 verge of doing themselves or the bystanders a mis- 

 chief, watchful attendants started from the pillars 

 against which they were leaning and caught them 

 round the waist. One individual was very fond of 



