Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1894 — Egypt’s Smelling Festival. [ARTICLE]

Egypt’s Smelling Festival.

On Monday next, when the annual custom termed “Shemm en Neseem” (or the Smelling of the Zephyr) will be observed, all Government offices will be closed and the day will be observed as a general holiday throughout the country. Onions will be in great demand, for early on Monday morning many persons, especially women, in accordance with an ancient Egyytian custom, dating from time immemorial,break an onion and smell it. There will also be a wholesale migration into the country for the purpose of “smelling the air,” which is believed by the natives of Egypt tc have a wonderfully beneficial effect on that day.—[Egyptian Gazette.