Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XI

Mus­sul­maun fes­ti­vals.--Buck­rah Eade.--Ish­mael be­lieved to have been of­fered in sac­ri­fice by Abra­ham and not Isaac.--De­scent of the Mus­sul­mauns from Abra­ham.--The Eade-​gaarh.--Pre­sen­ta­tion of Nuz­zas.--Ele­phants.--De­scrip­tion of the Khillaut (robe of hon­our).--Cus­toms on the day of Buck­rah Eade.--Nou-​Roze (New Year's Day).--Man­ner of its cel­ebra­tion.--The Bus­sund (Spring-​colour).--The Sah-​bund.--Ob­ser­vances dur­ing this month.--Fes­ti­val of the New Moon.--Su­per­sti­tion of the Na­tives re­spect­ing the in­flu­ence of the Moon.--Their prac­tices dur­ing an eclipse.--Sup­posed ef­fects of the Moon on a wound.--Medic­inal ap­pli­ca­tion of lime in Hin­doost­aun.--Ob­ser­vance of Shubh-​bur­raat.

An ac­count of the Mus­sul­maun fes­ti­vals, I imag­ine, de­serves a Let­ter; for in many of them I have been able to trace, not on­ly the habits and man­ners of the peo­ple with whom I was so­journ­ing, but oc­ca­sion­al­ly marks of their par­tic­ular faith have been strong­ly de­vel­oped in these ob­ser­vances, to most of which they at­tach con­sid­er­able im­por­tance. Buck­rah Eade, for in­stance, is a fes­ti­val about as in­ter­est­ing to the Na­tives, as Christ­mas-​day is to the good peo­ple of Eng­land; and the day is cel­ebrat­ed amongst all class­es and de­nom­ina­tions of Mus­sul­mauns with re­mark­able zeal and en­er­gy.

The par­tic­ular event which gives rise to Buck­rah Eade[1] is the well-​known cir­cum­stance of Abra­ham of­fer­ing his son in sac­ri­fice to God. The Mus­sul­mauns, how­ev­er, in­sist that the son so of­fered was Ish­mael, and not Isaac, as our Scrip­tures de­clare. I have be­fore re­marked that I had fre­quent ar­gu­ments with the learned men of that per­sua­sion on this sub­ject, which pro­voked a minute in­ves­ti­ga­tion of their most es­teemed au­thors, to de­cide be­tween our opin­ions. The au­thor of 'The Hyaa­tool Kaaloob' ad­vances many au­thor­ities, which the Mus­sul­mauns deem con­clu­sive, all of whom de­clare that Ish­mael was the son de­mand­ed and of­fered in sac­ri­fice; and two on­ly, I think, of the many names that au­thor quotes, were dis­posed to doubt whether it was Isaac or Ish­mael. An ev­ident proof, I think, that on some for­mer oc­ca­sion there had ex­ist­ed a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion on this sub­ject among men of their per­sua­sion. The re­sult of the present in­quiry, how­ev­er, is that they be­lieve Ish­mael was the of­fer­ing and not Isaac; whilst I re­main equal­ly con­vinced of the cor­rect­ness of our sa­cred book.

The Mus­sul­mauns, I should re­mark, as well as the Jews, trace their ori­gin to Abra­ham, the for­mer through Ish­mael, and the lat­ter through Isaac; and it is more than prob­able that to this cir­cum­stance may be at­tribut­ed the de­cid­ed prej­udice of opin­ion, in favour of Ish­mael be­ing the per­son of­fered in sac­ri­fice. Whether this be the case or not, these chil­dren of Abra­ham an­nu­al­ly tes­ti­fy their rev­er­ence for their pro­gen­itor, and re­spect for his faith to­wards God, in the way most con­ge­nial to their par­tic­ular ideas of hon­our­ing the mem­ory of their fore­fa­thers.

I have thus at­tempt­ed to sketch the ori­gin of the fes­ti­val, it shall now be my task to de­scribe the way in which the Mus­sul­mauns of Hin­doost­aun cel­ebrate Buck­rah Eade.

On this day all class­es of peo­ple, pro­fess­ing 'the faith' sac­ri­fice an­imals, ac­cord­ing to their cir­cum­stances; some of­fer up camels, oth­ers sheep and goats, lambs or kids. It is a day of re­li­gious ven­er­ation, and there­fore by the pi­ous prayers are added to sac­ri­fice;--it is al­so a day of joy­ful re­mem­brances, con­se­quent­ly one of fes­tiv­ity amongst all ranks of the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion.

Kings, Princes, or Nuwaubs, with the whole strength of their es­tab­lish­ments, cel­ebrate the event, by go­ing in great state to an ap­point­ed place, which is des­ig­nat­ed 'The Eade-​Gaarh'[2] where the an­imals de­signed for im­me­di­ate sac­ri­fice are pre­vi­ous­ly con­veyed. On the ar­rival of the cav­al­cade at the Eade-​gaarh, the head Mool­lah reads the form of prayer ap­point­ed for the oc­ca­sion, and then presents the knife to the roy­al per­son­age, who with his own hand sheds the blood of the camel he of­fers in sac­ri­fice, re­peat­ing an im­pres­sive prayer as he presents the steel to the throat of the an­imal. The ex­act mo­ment of the King's sac­ri­fice is an­nounced by sig­nal, when a grand salute from the ar­tillery and in­fantry com­mences the day's re­joic­ing.

An ac­count of the pro­ces­sion on these oc­ca­sions may be in­ter­est­ing to my read­ers, though no de­scrip­tion can give an ad­equate idea of its im­pos­ing ap­pear­ance. I have wit­nessed the Buck­rah Eade cel­ebra­tions at Luc­know, where ex­pense and good taste are nei­ther want­ed nor spared, to do hon­our to the great oc­ca­sion.

The sev­er­al per­sons form­ing the King's suite, whether no­bles or me­nials, to­geth­er with the mil­itary, both horse and foot, are all dressed in their best ap­par­el. The ele­phants have un­der­gone a thor­ough cleans­ing in the riv­er, their hides have been well oiled, which gives a jet­ty hue to the sur­face, and their heads paint­ed with bright colours, ac­cord­ing to the fan­cy of their keep­ers; their hous­ings and trap­pings are the most cost­ly and bril­liant the pos­ses­sors can pro­cure, some with gold, oth­ers with sil­ver how­dahs (seats), and draperies of vel­vet or fine cloth em­broi­dered and fringed with gold.

The hors­es of in­di­vid­uals, and those of the ir­reg­ular troops, are, on this oc­ca­sion, ca­parisoned with em­broi­dered horse­cloths and sil­ver or­na­ments, neck­laces of sil­ver or gold; or in the ab­sence of these cost­ly adorn­ings, the less af­flu­ent sub­sti­tute large coloured beads and tufts of var­ie­gat­ed silk on their hors­es' necks. Many of the hors­es have stars and cres­cents paint­ed up­on the chest and haunch­es: the tail and mane are dyed red with mayn­dhie.[3]

The pro­ces­sion is formed in the fol­low­ing or­der: Fifty camels, in pairs, car­ry­ing swivels, and each at­tend­ed by two gun­ners and a camel-​driv­er; the men dressed in clean white dress­es, with tur­bans and sash­es of red and green: the trap­pings of the camel are com­posed of broad­cloth of the same colours. Next to these is a park of ar­tillery, the men in new reg­imen­tals of blue, faced with red and yel­low lace. Two troops of horse sol­diers, in new reg­imen­tals, scar­let cloth un­rurkas[4] (coats) and white trousers, with high-​crowned caps of lamb­skin, sim­ilar to the Per­sian caps: these horse­men have black belts, and are armed with pis­tols in the hol­sters, a sabre and lance.

Then fol­lows a reg­iment of nu­jeebs[5] (foot sol­diers), their jack­ets red, with small cap tur­ban of black leather or­na­ment­ed with the kir­rich[6] or dirk (part of the ar­mo­ri­al bear­ings of the House of Oude): their trousers reach no low­er than the hams, where they are or­na­ment­ed with black points turn­ing up­wards on the white, leav­ing the thighs and legs per­fect­ly bare. The dunkah[7] (ket­tle drums) on a horse, rich­ly or­na­ment­ed with scar­let cloth drap­ery, em­broi­dered and fringed with gold, the rid­er dressed in scar­let and gold, with a tur­ban to cor­re­spond, both be­ing or­na­ment­ed with the roy­al in­signia,--a fish.[8]

The ele­phant car­riages, con­tain­ing first his Majesty and the Res­ident, the oth­ers con­vey­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and the favoured no­bles of his Majesty's suite, form an im­pres­sive fea­ture in the cortège, from their splen­dour and nov­el­ty. The King's car­riage is com­posed chiefly of sil­ver, open on ev­ery side, with a canopy of crim­son vel­vet, em­broi­dered and fringed with gold, the cur­tains and lin­ing to cor­re­spond; this car­riage is drawn by four ele­phants, ex­act­ly of one size (the rest have but two), each very rich­ly at­tired in vel­vet and gold cov­er­ings. The King and his suite are very splen­did­ly dressed in the Na­tive cos­tume. The chowries and af­thaadah are flour­ished be­fore him, and on each side; the roy­al car­riage is guard­ed by the ir­reg­ular horse in great num­bers, and im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by led hors­es, very rich­ly ca­parisoned, their grooms neat­ly dressed in white, with tur­bans of red and green. To these suc­ceed the roy­al naalkie,[9] a species of con­veyance sup­port­ed by bear­ers, con­struct­ed of beau­ti­ful­ly wrought gold; the bear­ers in loose scar­let coats, em­broi­dered with gold, bear­ing the roy­al in­signia on their coats and tur­bans. A gold palkie, sup­port­ed in the same style; an el­egant state car­riage, with eight black hors­es in hand, the coach­man (a Eu­ro­pean) dressed in scar­let, with a cocked-​hat and staff feath­er.

Hurkaarahs (run­ning mes­sen­gers), chob­dhaahs with gold and sil­ver staffs, are seen on ei­ther side and in front of the King's car­riage, re­it­er­at­ing the King's ti­tles and hon­ours as they pro­ceed. Then fol­low the En­glish gen­tle­men com­pos­ing the King's suite, in their court dress­es, on ele­phants. To them suc­ceed the Na­tive no­bil­ity, great of­fi­cers of state, &c., on many ele­phants,--I should think more than fifty,--and the whole fol­lowed by mil­itary, both horse and foot. The pro­ces­sion has an im­pos­ing ef­fect, par­tic­ular­ly when viewed from an open space. The reg­iments have each their colours un­furled, and their bands of mu­sic play­ing En­glish pieces. I have of­ten thought if our the­atri­cal man­agers could wit­ness some of these splen­did pro­ces­sions, they might prof­it by rep­re­sent­ing on the stage the grand ex­hi­bi­tion of an East­ern monarch, which los­es much of its splen­dour by my in­dif­fer­ent pow­ers of de­scrip­tion.

Af­ter the cer­emo­ny at the Eade-​gaarh has con­clud­ed, the King and his suite re­turn in the same well-​ar­ranged or­der, and ar­riv­ing at his palace, en­ters the throne-​room, where be­ing seat­ed, he re­ceives nuz­zas in due form, pre­sent­ed in turn by ev­ery per­son be­long­ing to the court, whether re­la­tions, no­bles, courtiers, de­pen­dants, ser­vants, or slaves; ev­ery per­son ob­serv­ing a prop­er eti­quette in their ap­proach to the throne, the in­fe­ri­ors keep­ing back un­til their su­pe­ri­ors re­tire,--which each one does im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter pre­sent­ing his nuz­za; thus con­fu­sion is pre­vent­ed in the hall of au­di­ence.

As a de­scrip­tion of the cer­emo­ny of pre­sent­ing nuz­zas, on such oc­ca­sions, may be ac­cept­able to some of my friends, I will de­scribe that which I wit­nessed at the Court of Oude.

The King was seat­ed on his throne of pure gold, dressed in a very cost­ly habit of Per­sian vel­vet, em­broi­dered with gold; on his neck, valu­able haarhs (neck­laces) of di­amonds, pearls, ru­bies and emer­alds, were sus­pend­ed in many rows, reach­ing from the neck near­ly to the waist.

The throne is a flat sur­face, about two yards square, raised about two feet from the floor, up­on three sides of it is a rail­ing; a square canopy, sup­port­ed by poles, is at­tached to the four cor­ners of the throne, which, to­geth­er with the poles, are formed of wood, and cased over with pure gold, in­to which are set pre­cious stones of great val­ue. The canopy and cush­ions, on which the King takes his seat, are of crim­son vel­vet, very rich­ly em­broi­dered with gold and pearls; a deep fringe of pearls of a good size fin­ish­es the bor­der of the canopy. The chat­tah is of cor­re­spond­ing cost­ly ma­te­ri­als (crim­son vel­vet and gold), fringed al­so with red pearls.

The King's crown is el­egant­ly formed, rich­ly stud­ded with di­amonds, and or­na­ment­ed with hand­some plumes of the birds of Par­adise. Over his head was sup­port­ed the vel­vet chat­tah. On ei­ther side of the throne stood a no­ble­man with chowries of pea­cock's-​feath­ers in gold han­dles, which they kept wav­ing con­tin­ual­ly over the King's per­son.

To the right of the throne were gilt chairs with vel­vet seats placed for the ac­com­mo­da­tion of the Res­ident and his la­dy, who were ac­com­pa­nied by many En­glish ladies and gen­tle­men stand­ing, as al­so by the Eu­ro­pean gen­tle­men at­tached to the King's suite: the lat­ter, in their court dress­es of puce cloth, rich­ly em­broi­dered with gold, had a very good ef­fect, min­gled with the well-​dressed la­dy-​vis­itors of the Res­ident.

To the left of the throne stood the Na­tive gen­tle­men hold­ing high of­fices in the Court of Oude, each rich­ly dressed in the Asi­at­ic cos­tume.

At the King's feet stood the Vizier (Prime Min­is­ter), whose busi­ness it is, on such oc­ca­sions, to de­posit the nuz­zas on the throne af­ter they have been ac­cept­ed by his Majesty.

As the com­pa­ny ad­vanced the head Cham­ber­lain an­nounced the name and rank of each per­son in the pres­ence of the King. The sec­ond Cham­ber­lain di­rect­ed such per­sons, af­ter pre­sent­ing the nuz­za, the way they must re­tire from the hall.

The nuz­zas of the first no­bil­ity con­sist­ed of twen­ty-​one gold mo­hurs[10]; those of less ex­alt­ed per­sons were pro­por­tioned to their rank and cir­cum­stances; whilst ser­vants and slaves, with in­fe­ri­or de­pen­dants of the Court, ten­dered their hum­ble trib­ute of re­spect in ru­pees of sil­ver.

The per­son pre­sent­ing has the of­fer­ing placed on a clean white fold­ed ker­chief; he ad­vances with his head bowed low, un­til with­in ten paces of the throne; he then stands erect for a few sec­onds, with his hands fold­ed and held for­ward, af­ter which he bows his head very low three times, and each time places his open hand to his fore­head,--this is called 'salaam­ing'; this done, he ad­vances to the foot of the throne, re­peats the three salaams, then presents with both hands the nuz­za on the ker­chief, which the King touch­es with, his hand, and the Vizier re­ceives and de­posits with the col­lect­ed heap by the side of his Majesty.

When the cer­emo­ny of pre­sent­ing nuz­zas has con­clud­ed, the King ris­es and ad­vances with the Res­ident to the cen­tre of the au­di­ence hall, where the per­son in charge of the haarhs[11] is in at­ten­dance with sev­er­al of these marks of dis­tinc­tion, one of which the King se­lects and places with his own hands over the head of the Res­ident; the Res­ident then takes one and places it on the King in a sim­ilar way. Should the Vizier be in favour at this time, he is in­vest­ed with the haarh, both by his Majesty and the Res­ident; but if, un­for­tu­nate­ly for him, he does not en­joy his roy­al mas­ter's con­fi­dence, he takes this op­por­tu­ni­ty of tes­ti­fy­ing his dis­sat­is­fac­tion by omit­ting the favour to his Vizier. The haarh is ac­tu­al­ly of very lit­tle val­ue but as a badge of dis­tinc­tion pe­cu­liar to Na­tive courts, to which the Na­tives at­tach so much im­por­tance, that I won­der not at their anx­iety to be hon­oured with this dis­tin­guish­ing mark of the King's sat­is­fac­tion.

Eu­ro­pean vis­itors, both male and fe­male, are gen­er­al­ly adorned with haarhs on these oc­ca­sions. The King then con­ducts the Res­ident to the en­trance,--when tak­ing leave, he pours ot­ta[12] on his hands, with the 'Kho­dah Afiz!'[13] (God be with you!) and some­times out of com­pli­ment to the Res­ident, his Majesty of­fers ot­ta al­so to each of the En­glish vis­itors, as they pass him at the door.

On these great court days, the Vizier's nuz­za is usu­al­ly of great val­ue,--some­times a lac of ru­pees has been pre­sent­ed, when the Vizier is much in favour, who is sure to re­ceive ten times the val­ue of his nuz­za ere the day is passed. When this large sum is pre­sent­ed, the Min­is­ter has his one hun­dred bags (each con­tain­ing a thou­sand ru­pees), cov­ered with crim­son silk, and tied with sil­ver ribands, placed on each side the throne pri­or to the King's ar­rival; who, on see­ing this proof of his faith­ful ser­vant's at­tach­ment, con­de­scends to em­brace him in the pres­ence of the as­sem­bled court--an hon­our of vast mag­ni­tude in the es­ti­ma­tion of Na­tives.

The King con­fers favour on, as well as re­ceives homage from, his sub­jects, on the day of Buck­rah Eade. On some, ti­tles or oth­er dis­tinc­tions are con­ferred; to oth­ers presents, ac­cord­ing to his good will and plea­sure: many re­ceive khillauts; and should there be an un­for­tu­nate omis­sion, in the dis­tri­bu­tion of prince­ly mu­nif­icence, that per­son un­der­stands to his sor­row, that he is out of favour, with­out need­ing to be told so by word of mouth.

The ti­tle of Khaun, Nuwaub, Ra­jah, or any oth­er dis­tinc­tion con­ferred by the King, is ac­com­pa­nied by the dress of hon­our, and of­ten by ele­phants, hors­es, or the par­tic­ular kind of Na­tive palkie which are alone used by princes and the no­bil­ity. The ele­phant is al­ways giv­en ready fur­nished with the sev­er­al nec­es­sary ap­pendages, as sil­ver how­dah, em­broi­dered jhewls[14] (draperies), &c.; and the horse rich­ly ca­parisoned for rid­ing.

The naalkie and palkie are ve­hi­cles con­ferred on Na­tive gen­tle­men with their ti­tles, which can­not be used by any per­sons than those who have re­ceived the grant from their Sovereign; and there is quite as much am­bi­tion to be thus dis­tin­guished in a Na­tive Court, as may be traced amongst the as­pi­rants for 'the or­ders' in the sev­er­al Eu­ro­pean states.

Though the naalkie and palkie are re­strict­ed to the use of priv­ileged per­sons, all are al­lowed the ser­vices of the ele­phant. I knew a pro­fessed beg­gar, who made his di­ur­nal tour through the city of Luc­know on one. A beg­gar, how­ev­er, in Na­tive es­ti­ma­tion, is not the de­spi­ca­ble crea­ture he is in Eu­ro­pean opin­ion; a de­gree of ven­er­ation is al­ways evinced to­wards men, who live on the ca­su­al boun­ty of their fel­low mor­tals, and pro­fess not to have ei­ther a world­ly call­ing or oth­er means of sup­port. The beg­gar, I al­lude to, was called Shaah Jhee[15]; he had orig­inal­ly been a trav­el­ling men­di­cant, and made a vis­it to Luc­know, when the late King was a young man, whom he met by ac­ci­dent out­side the town; and, I be­lieve, with­out know­ing to whom he was speak­ing, pre­dict­ed some favourable cir­cum­stances which should at­tend him even­tu­al­ly; the young prince then dis­closed him­self to the beg­gar, and promised him if his pre­dic­tions were ver­ified, he would re­ward him in the way he wished. Shaah Jhee left the Oude dis­trict, and trav­elled over most parts of Hin­doost­aun. Re­turn­ing af­ter many years' ab­sence to Luc­know, he found the prince seat­ed on the throne of his an­ces­tors, and watch­ing for a favourable op­por­tu­ni­ty to present him­self, made his claims to the sovereign, who, re­mem­ber­ing the cir­cum­stance and his promise, con­ferred the re­quired re­ward--to be al­lowed to de­mand five cowries dai­ly from ev­ery shop­keep­er in the city of Luc­know. The King added to this hum­ble de­mand a house to re­side in, and the ele­phant on which he went to col­lect his rev­enue. Eighty-​five cowries (shells) are val­ued at one pice, or a half­pen­ny; yet so vast is this cap­ital of Oude, that Shaah Jhee was in the re­ceipt of a hand­some dai­ly al­lowance, by this ap­par­ent­ly tri­fling col­lec­tion.

Most of the re­spectable gen­tle­men in Luc­know main­tain an ele­phant for their own use, where it is al­most as com­mon to meet them as hors­es. Though most per­sons, I ob­serve, avoid falling in with, the roy­al cortège, (which is al­ways an­nounced by the sound of the dunkah), un­less they are dis­posed to court the King's ob­ser­va­tion; then they draw up their ele­phant, and oblige the an­imal to kneel down whilst the King pass­es on, the own­er stand­ing in his how­dah to make salaams; oth­ers, I have seen, dis­mount in time, and stand in a hum­ble pos­ture, with the hands fold­ed and the head bowed low, do­ing rev­er­ence and at­tract­ing his Majesty's no­tice as he pass­es on. These lit­tle acts of cer­emo­ni­ous re­spect are grat­ify­ing to the King, and are fre­quent­ly the means of ad­vanc­ing the views of the sub­ject to his favour.

The khillauts, pre­sent­ed by the King, vary in the num­ber of the ar­ti­cles com­pos­ing the gift, as well as in the qual­ity. The per­son­al rank, and some­times the de­gree of es­ti­ma­tion in which the re­ceiv­er is held, is de­fined by the val­ue and num­ber of an in­di­vid­ual's khillaut. I have known some gen­tle­men tena­cious to a foible, about the na­ture of the khillaut that could con­sis­tent­ly be ac­cept­ed; I have heard it even ex­pressed, 'I shall be dis­graced in the eyes of the world, if my khillaut has not the full com­ple­ment usu­al­ly con­ferred on men of my rank'. It is the hon­our they val­ue, not the in­trin­sic worth of the ar­ti­cles, for it is no un­com­mon thing to find them dis­tribut­ing the dress of hon­our amongst their de­pen­dants, on the same day they have re­ceived it.

The splen­did ar­ti­cles com­pos­ing khillauts are as fol­lows: swords with em­broi­dered belts, the han­dle and scab­bard ei­ther enam­elled or em­bossed sil­ver, of­ten set with pre­cious stones; the most in­fe­ri­or have sil­ver mount­ings and vel­vet scab­bards; shields stud­ded with sil­ver; kir­rich (dirk), the han­dle and sheath equal­ly as rich as the swords; em­broi­dered or gold cloth chup­kunds[16] (coats); shawl-​stuff labaadahs[17] (peliss­es), trimmed with sable; tur­bans of shawl or muslin; or­na­ments for the tur­ban of di­amonds and emer­alds, the in­fe­ri­or of paste; strings of pearls and emer­alds for the neck; shawls, al­ways in pairs, of more or less val­ue; shawl-​ker­chiefs; shawl cum­mer­bunds[18] (gir­dles); shawl la­haafs[19] (coun­ter­panes); gold cloth, gold and sil­ver muslins, and shawl stuff, in pieces, each be­ing suf­fi­cient to form a dress; Benares silks, or rich satin for trousers; pieces of fine em­broi­dered muslin for shirts. These are the usu­al ar­ti­cles of val­ue giv­en in khillauts to the most ex­alt­ed favourites. In some in­stances the King con­fers one hun­dred and one pieces in a khillaut; in oth­ers sev­en­ty-​five, and down to five ar­ti­cles, which is the low­est num­ber giv­en in this much-​prized dress of hon­our. In a khillaut of five pieces, I have ob­served, gen­er­al­ly, a coars­er kind of gold cloth dress, a coloured muslin tur­ban, a pair of coarse shawls, a coarse shawl ro­ma­ll[20] (ker­chief), and a gir­dle. I have al­so ob­served, that the high­er the num­bers rise, the qual­ity of the ar­ti­cles in­creased in val­ue; con­se­quent­ly, when we hear of any one be­ing in­vest­ed with the high­est num­ber, we cal­cu­late that each piece is of the very best qual­ity and fab­ric.

When khillauts are con­ferred, the in­vesti­ture usu­al­ly takes place in the King's pres­ence, who some­times con­de­scends to place one of the ar­ti­cles on the re­ceiv­er with his own hands; at oth­er times he mere­ly touch­es the tur­ban with his hand, and the in­di­vid­uals are clothed by the Prime Min­is­ter. Af­ter re­ceiv­ing the khillaut, each per­son ap­proach­es the throne and does homage to the King, pre­sent­ing a nuz­za in ac­cor­dance with his rank, and the val­ue of the khillaut.

The Rev­enue Col­lec­tors and Ze­mind­haars[21] (land­lords of farms) crowd to the Court on these days, to tes­ti­fy their re­spect and share in the hon­ours dis­tribut­ed with a lib­er­al hand. These per­sons may well be so­lic­itous to re­ceive this badge of dis­tinc­tion, which they find in­creas­es their in­flu­ence over the Ry­otts[22] (cul­ti­va­tors).

On the morn­ing of Buck­rah Eade, the King gives a pub­lic break­fast at Luc­know, to the Res­ident and his suite, and to such of the Na­tive no­bil­ity as are priv­ileged to 'the chair'[23] at the roy­al ban­quets. The break­fast con­clud­ed, many va­ri­eties of sports com­mence, as ele­phant-​fight­ing, tiger sports, &c.[24] The en­ter­tain­ment is got up with great mag­nif­icence, nei­ther ex­pense nor trou­ble be­ing spared to ren­der the fes­tiv­ities of the day con­spic­uous.

Af­ter the Res­ident and his par­ty have re­tired, the King re­turns to his pri­vate apart­ments, where the forms of state are thrown aside with the splen­did robes; and the ease and com­fort of re­al Asi­at­ic life is again in­dulged in, with­out the pa­rade so stu­dious­ly ob­served in pub­lic, as be­ing es­sen­tial to the sovereign's dig­ni­ty. The tram­mels of state must in­deed be irk­some to those who in­dulge in that sort of lux­uri­ous ease which forms the chief com­fort of Na­tive life.

The evening at Court is passed by the King and his favourite courtiers, with mu­sic and the per­for­mances of danc­ing-​girls; a va­ri­ety of fire-​work ex­hi­bi­tions; the wit­ti­cisms of the Court-​jesters, and such oth­er amuse­ments as are suit­ed to Asi­at­ic taste.

The mag­nif­icent style of cel­ebrat­ing Buck­rah Eade at Luc­know is per­haps un­equalled by any oth­er Na­tive Court now ex­ist­ing in Hin­doost­aun. The re­joic­ings on this fes­ti­val are not con­fined to the high­er class­es alone; but it is a pe­ri­od of equal in­ter­est to ev­ery in­di­vid­ual of the Mus­sul­maun com­mu­ni­ty. The cus­tom of the Court is im­itat­ed by the sub­jects in their sev­er­al grades, each striv­ing to do hon­our to the day ac­cord­ing to their abil­ity. The re­li­gious class­es add, to their usu­al Na­maaz, the ap­point­ed prayer for the oc­ca­sion of Buck­rah Eade.

The rich send presents of goats and sheep to their neigh­bours and to the poor, so that the mean­est of the peo­ple are en­abled to of­fer sac­ri­fice and re­joice in the good things of which they par­take: new suits of clothes are al­so dis­tribut­ed to the de­pen­dants of the fam­ily and to the poor. In short, on this day, there seems a spir­it of benev­olence abroad, that is even re­mark­able be­yond the gen­er­al gen­eros­ity of their nat­ural char­ac­ter, as all who have any thing to share will as­sured­ly, on this oc­ca­sion, im­part a bless­ing to the needy, and grat­ify their friends and ac­quain­tances.

The bride and bride­groom elect ex­change presents of goats, &c.; the tu­tor writes a copy of vers­es on the day, and presents it to his pupil; the pupil in re­turn sends his tu­tor a dress and mon­ey to en­able him to keep Eade with his fam­ily.

The ladies dress in their most cost­ly jew­els and ap­par­el to re­ceive or pay vis­its. The chil­dren have their sports and amuse­ments. When­ev­er I have en­tered a Na­tive house on these days, all seemed cheer­ful and hap­py, and en­joy­ing them­selves in what­ev­er way was most con­ge­nial to their par­tic­ular tastes; 'ev­ery one must be cheer­ful (they say) on Buck­rah Eade'.

On this day, mil­lions of an­imals are sac­ri­ficed in re­mem­brance of Abra­ham's faith. I have of­ten thought how strik­ing is the sim­ilar­ity be­tween the Mo­sa­ic and Mus­sul­maun in­sti­tutes,--in­deed my rec­ol­lec­tions of Scrip­ture his­to­ry have fre­quent­ly been re­al­ized in the views I have had of the do­mes­tic habits of the Mus­sul­mauns. They are for­bid­den the use of un­clean an­imals; the swine is equal­ly abom­inable to Mus­sul­mauns as to the Jews; nei­ther are they less scrupu­lous in dis­card­ing from their kitchen any kind of an­imal food pro­hib­it­ed by their laws, or which has not been killed by one of their faith. In this pro­cess the per­son, who is to slay, turns the an­imal's head to­wards Mec­ca, re­peats the short ap­point­ed prayer, and with one plunge the an­imal has ceased to feel: they are ex­pert in the art of despatch­ing life, so that the an­imal's suf­fer­ings may not be pro­tract­ed un­nec­es­sar­ily;--an ami­able trait of char­ac­ter and wor­thy of im­ita­tion.

* * * * *

'Nou-​Roze'[25] (New Year's Day) is a Fes­ti­val of Eade of no mean im­por­tance in the es­ti­ma­tion of Mus­sul­maun so­ci­ety.

The ex­act pe­ri­od of com­menc­ing the Mus­sul­maun new year is the very mo­ment of the sun's en­ter­ing the sign Aries. This is cal­cu­lat­ed by those prac­ti­cal as­tronomers, who are in the ser­vice of most great men in Na­tive cities;--I should tell you they have not the ben­efit of pub­lished al­manacks as in Eng­land,--and ac­cord­ing to the hour of the day or night when the sun pass­es in­to that par­tic­ular sign, so are they di­rect­ed in the choice of a colour to be worn in their gar­ments on this Eade: if at mid­night, the colour would be dark puce, al­most a black; if at mid-​day, the colour would be the bright­est crim­son. Thus to the in­ter­me­di­ate hours are giv­en a shade of ei­ther colour ap­pli­ca­ble to the time of the night or the day when the sun en­ters the sign Aries; and what­ev­er be the colour to suit the hour of Nou-​Roze, all class­es wear the day's liv­ery, from the King to the mean­est sub­ject in the city. The King, on his throne, sits in state to re­ceive con­grat­ula­tions and nuz­zas from his no­bles, courtiers and de­pen­dants. 'Mabaarukh Nou-​Roze!'[26] (May the New Year be for­tu­nate!) are the terms of salu­ta­tion ex­changed by all class­es of so­ci­ety, the King him­self set­ting the ex­am­ple. The day is de­vot­ed to amuse­ments, a pub­lic break­fast at the palace, send­ing presents, ex­chang­ing vis­its, &c.

The trays of presents pre­pared by the ladies for their friends are taste­ful­ly set out, and the work of many days' pre­vi­ous ar­range­ment. Eggs are boiled hard, some of these are stained in colours re­sem­bling our mot­tled pa­pers; oth­ers are neat­ly paint­ed in fig­ures and de­vices; many are or­na­ment­ed with gild­ing; ev­ery la­dy evinc­ing her own pe­cu­liar taste in the pre­pared eggs for 'Nou-​Roze'. All kinds of dried fruits and nuts, con­fec­tionary and cakes, are num­bered amongst the nec­es­sary ar­ti­cles for this day's of­fer­ing: they are set out in small earth­en plates, lac­quered over to re­sem­ble sil­ver, on which is placed coloured pa­per, cut out in cu­ri­ous de­vices (an ex­cel­lent sub­sti­tute for vine leaves) laid on the plate to re­ceive the sev­er­al ar­ti­cles form­ing 'Nou-​Roze' presents.

Amongst the young peo­ple these trays are looked for­ward to with child-​like anx­iety. The ladies ri­val each oth­er in their dis­play of nov­el­ty and good taste, both in the eat­ables and the man­ner of set­ting them off with ef­fect.

The re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty have prayers read in their fam­ily, and by them it is con­sid­ered both a nec­es­sary du­ty and a pro­pi­tious com­mence­ment to bring in the new year by 'prayer and prais­es'.

When it is known that the Nou-​Roze will oc­cur by day­light, the ladies have a cus­tom of watch­ing for the mo­ment the year shall com­mence by a fresh rose, which be­ing plucked from the stalk is thrown in­to a basin of wa­ter, the eye down­wards. They say, this rose turns over of it­self to­wards the sun at the very mo­ment of that lu­mi­nary pass­ing in­to the sign Aries. I have of­ten found them thus en­gaged; but I nev­er could say I wit­nessed the ac­tu­al ac­com­plish­ment of their pre­dic­tion.

The Nou-​Roze teems with friend­ly to­kens be­tween the two fam­ilies of a bride and bride­groom elect, whose in­ter­change of presents are al­so strict­ly ob­served. The chil­dren re­ceive gifts from their el­ders; their nurs­es reap a har­vest from the day; the tu­tor writes an ode in praise of his pupil, and re­ceives gifts from the child's par­ents; the ser­vants and slaves are re­galed with dain­ties and with presents from the su­pe­ri­ors of the es­tab­lish­ment; the poor are re­mem­bered with clothes, mon­ey and food; the ladies make and re­ceive vis­its; and the dome­nie at­tend to play and sing in the zeenah­nah. In short, the whole day is passed in cheer­ful amuse­ments, suit­ed to the re­tire­ment of a zeenah­nah and the habits of the peo­ple.

* * * * *

There is a fes­ti­val ob­served at Luc­know called Bus­sund[27] (spring-​colour). I should re­mark here, that al­most all the trees of In­dia have per­pet­ual fo­liage; as the sea­son ap­proach­es for the new leaves to sprout, the young buds force off the old leaves; and when the trees are thus clothed in their first del­icate fo­liage, there is a yel­low tinge in the colour which is de­nom­inat­ed Bus­sund (Spring). A day is ap­point­ed to be kept un­der this ti­tle, and then ev­ery one wears the Bus­sund colour: no one would be ad­mit­ted at Court with­out this badge of the day. The ele­phants, hors­es and camels of the King, or of his no­bles, are all or­na­ment­ed with the same colour on their trap­pings.

The King holds a Court, gives a pub­lic break­fast, and ex­hibits sports with fe­ro­cious an­imals. The amuse­ments of this day are chiefly con­fined to the Court: I have not ob­served much no­tice tak­en of it in pri­vate life.

The last month of the pe­ri­od­ical rains is called Sah­baund.[28] There is a cus­tom ob­served by the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion, the ori­gin of which has nev­er been clear­ly ex­plained to me; some say it is in re­mem­brance of the Prophet El­isha or Eli­jah, and com­mences the first Fri­day of Sah­baund, and is fol­lowed up ev­ery suc­ceed­ing Fri­day through this con­clud­ing month of the rainy sea­son.[29]

This cer­emo­ny may have had its ori­gin with de­vout per­sons will­ing to hon­our or to in­voke the Prophet Eli­jah, who, as our Scrip­ture in­forms us, 'prayed, and the clouds gave no rain for the space of three years; and again he prayed and the heav­ens were opened to his prayer'. Or in that of El­isha part­ing the wa­ters with the man­tle of Eli­jah, af­ter suc­ceed­ing him in the Prophet­ic of­fice, 2 Kings ii. 14; or a still more prob­able event, cal­cu­lat­ed to ex­cite the pi­ous to some such an­nu­al no­tice as is ob­served with these peo­ple, in the same chap­ter, the twen­ti­eth and fol­low­ing vers­es, where we find it said of El­isha, 'And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt there­in. And they brought it to him. And he went forth un­to the spring of the wa­ters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these wa­ters; there shall not be from thence any more dearth or bar­ren land. So the wa­ters were healed un­to this day, ac­cord­ing to the say­ing of El­isha which he spake.'

The learned men call it a zeenah­nah, or chil­dren's cus­tom; but it is com­mon to see chil­dren of all ages amongst the males, par­take of, and en­joy the fes­ti­val with as much glee as the fe­males or their ju­niors.

A bam­boo frame is formed to the shape of a Chi­nese boat: this frame-​work is hid­den by a cov­er­ing of gold and sil­ver tis­sue, silk, or coloured muslin, bor­dered and neat­ly or­na­ment­ed with sil­ver pa­per. In this light bark many lamps are se­cret­ed, of com­mon earth­en­ware. A pro­ces­sion is formed to con­vey the trib­ute, called 'Elias ky Kish­tee[30]', to the riv­er. The ser­vants of the fam­ily, sol­diers, and a band of Na­tive mu­sic at­tend in due or­der of march: the crowd at­tract­ed by this child­ish play is im­mense, in­creas­ing as they ad­vance through the sev­er­al streets on the way to the riv­er, by all the idlers of the place.

The kish­tee (boat) is launched amidst a flour­ish of trum­pets and drums, and the shouts of the pop­ulace; the small ves­sel, be­ing first well light­ed, by means of the se­cret­ed lamps, moves down gen­tly with the stream. When at a lit­tle dis­tance, on a broad riv­er, in the still­ness of evening, any one--who did not pre­vi­ous­ly know how these lit­tle mov­ing bod­ies of light were pro­duced--might fan­cy such fairy scenes as are to be met with in the well-​told fa­bles of chil­dren's books in hap­py Eng­land.

This cus­tom, though strong­ly par­tak­ing of the su­per­sti­tious, is not so blame­able as that which I have known prac­tised by some men of es­teemed good un­der­stand­ing, who hav­ing a par­tic­ular ob­ject in view, which they can­not at­tain by any hu­man stratagem or con­trivance, write pe­ti­tions to the Emaum Mhid­hie on Fri­days, and by their own hands com­mit the pa­per to the riv­er, with as much rev­er­ence as if they thought him present in the wa­ter to re­ceive it. The pe­ti­tion is al­ways writ­ten in the same re­spect­ful terms, as in­fe­ri­ors here well know how to ad­dress their su­pe­ri­ors; and ev­ery suc­ceed­ing Fri­day the pe­ti­tion is re­peat­ed un­til the ob­ject is ac­com­plished, or the pe­ti­tion­er has no fur­ther in­duce­ment to of­fer one.

I have made par­tic­ular in­quiries whether such sen­si­ble peo­ple (as I have seen thus en­gaged) placed any de­pen­dence on this mode of pe­ti­tion­ing. The on­ly an­swer I have re­ceived, is, 'Those who think prop­er thus to pe­ti­tion, cer­tain­ly be­lieve that it will be ef­fec­tu­al, if they per­se­vere in it.'

The New Moon is a fes­ti­val in the fam­ily of ev­ery good Mus­sul­maun.[31] They date the new moon from the evening it first be­come vis­ible, and not as we do--from the mo­ment it changes. The event is an­nounced in Na­tive cities by fir­ing salutes from the field-​pieces of Kings, Nuwaubs, &c.

Amongst the re­li­gious peo­ple there is much prepa­ra­tion in bathing and chang­ing the dress against the evening the moon is ex­pect­ed to be vis­ible, and when the guns have an­nounced that it is vis­ible, they have the Kho­raun brought, which they open at the pas­sage where Mahu­mud prais­es God for this par­tic­ular bless­ing. A small look­ing glass is then brought, on which pas­sage it is placed, and the book held in such a po­si­tion that the moon may be first seen by the per­son re­flect­ed in the glass. They then re­peat the prayer, ex­press­ly ap­point­ed for this oc­ca­sion, and that done, the whole fam­ily rise and em­brace each oth­er, mak­ing salaams and rev­er­ence to their su­pe­ri­ors and el­ders. The ser­vants and slaves ad­vance for the same pur­pose, and noth­ing is heard for some min­utes, but 'May the new moon be for­tu­nate!' re­it­er­at­ed from ev­ery mouth of the as­sem­bled fam­ily.

I can­not an­swer for the mo­tives which ac­tu­ate the ig­no­rant peo­ple to bow when they first see the new moon; but the pi­ous Mus­sul­maun, I am as­sured, bows to the Cre­ator for the vis­ible bless­ing, and not to the ob­ject.

The first eat­ables hand­ed round to se­cure good luck and health through­out the month are sug­ar-​can­dy and cheese. I fan­cy this is a mere zeenah­nah cus­tom, for I do not find the males so par­tic­ular about eat­ing this most ex­traor­di­nary mix­ture as the fe­males.

The ser­vants' wages are paid by the month, and in well-​reg­ulat­ed fam­ilies the first day of the moon is hailed by de­pen­dants and do­mes­tics with no small share of anx­iety. In­deed, these peo­ple make the moon of much more im­por­tance in the reg­ula­tion of do­mes­tic af­fairs than the in­hab­itants of more pol­ished coun­tries, for they at­tribute the in­flu­ence of that plan­et over the in­hab­itants of the earth in many ex­traor­di­nary ways. It may be deemed su­per­sti­tious, but as my busi­ness is to re­late the most ma­te­ri­al cer­emonies among this peo­ple, I can­not well omit notic­ing some of their ob­ser­vances at this time.

If any per­son is ill, and bleed­ing is the on­ly good rem­edy to be pur­sued, the age of the moon is first dis­cussed, and if it hap­pens to be near the full, they are in­flex­ibly res­olute that the pa­tient shall not lose blood un­til her in­flu­ence is less­ened. And should it hap­pen at the com­mence­ment of the sec­ond quar­ter, or a few days af­ter the full, the dif­fi­cul­ty is to be over­come by dep­re­cat­ing the evil in­flu­ence of the moon over the pa­tient, by burn­ing a brand of straw which is flour­ished about the sick per­son's head, who is brought out in­to the moon's pres­ence for this im­por­tant op­er­ation.[32] Many equal­ly ex­traor­di­nary things of this sort I have been obliged to wit­ness in the zeenah­nah.

The full moon is deemed pro­pi­tious for cel­ebrat­ing the mar­riage fes­ti­vals. If this be not pos­si­ble, care is al­ways to be tak­en that the cer­emo­ny does not fall at the pe­ri­od when she is in the un­favourable sign; they say the hap­pi­ness of the young cou­ple de­pends on this be­ing care­ful­ly avoid­ed, as in the opin­ion of ev­ery Mus­sul­maun 'the moon in Scor­pio' is un­pro­pi­tious for any busi­ness of mo­ment.[33]

When a jour­ney is con­tem­plat­ed the moon's age is the first con­sid­er­ation; in­deed, the favourable signs of Madam Lu­na's move­ments are not on­ly se­lect­ed for com­menc­ing a jour­ney, but for all un­der­tak­ings of like im­por­tance;--whether to build, to write, to plant, to take medicine, &c.

What will be said of the sin­gu­lar cus­tom, 'drink­ing the moon at a draught'? A sil­ver basin be­ing filled with wa­ter is held in such a sit­ua­tion that the full moon may be re­flect­ed in it; the per­son to be ben­efit­ed by this draught is re­quired to look stead­fast­ly at the moon in the basin, then shut his eyes and quaff the liq­uid at one draught.[34] This rem­edy is ad­vised by med­ical pro­fes­sors in ner­vous cas­es, and al­so for pal­pi­ta­tions of the heart. I have seen this prac­tised, but I am not aware of any re­al ben­efit de­rived by the pa­tient from the pre­scrip­tion.

When the plan­et Venus is in con­junc­tion with the moon, they say the time is most favourable to of­fer prayers to God for any par­tic­ular ob­ject they may have in view. At this time they write charms or tal­is­mans to be worn by chil­dren. I re­mem­ber hav­ing wit­nessed a gen­tle­man thus oc­cu­pied, who wrote lit­tle scraps in the Ara­bic char­ac­ter to dis­tribute amongst the chil­dren of his friends, who wore them en­closed in sil­ver cas­es on their arms.

An eclipse of the moon is an event of great in­ter­est, both with the Mus­sul­maun and the Hin­doo pop­ula­tion, al­though they have very op­po­site ideas of the caus­es of an eclipse.

Many of the no­tions en­ter­tained by the low­er class­es of Mus­sul­mauns up­on the na­ture of an eclipse are bor­rowed from the Hin­doos.[34] Some think that it is caused by the anger of God to­wards the peo­ple of the earth; oth­ers say the moon is in debt, and many oth­er equal­ly odd con­ceits ex­ist amongst the ig­no­rant peo­ple, and among them on­ly. Yet a sen­sa­tion of awe is felt by most; and where is the in­tel­li­gent crea­ture who can view an eclipse or any oth­er phe­nomenon of Na­ture with­out the same feel­ing of awe, al­though all are not equal­ly ready to ex­press the sen­sa­tion?

Loud cries from the mixed pop­ula­tion, Mus­sul­mauns and Hin­doos, an­nounce the com­mence­ment of an eclipse, whether it be of the sun or the moon. The voice of the Mus­sul­maun is dis­tin­guished by the Na­maazies'[35] call to prayers--'Al­lah wo uck­baar![36] (God alone is great!) To this sum­mons the faith­ful at­tend dili­gent­ly, and they are gen­er­al­ly oc­cu­pied in the form of prayer ap­point­ed by Mahu­mud un­til the shad­ow has passed over the sun or moon eclipsed.

The ladies pre­pare of­fer­ings of corn, oil, and mon­ey to be dis­tribut­ed amongst the poor. The gen­tle­men give presents to the needy. The as­tronomer who pre­dicts to his roy­al or no­ble mas­ter the ex­act pe­ri­od of an eclipse, is re­ward­ed, when it is over, with mon­ey, a dress, and a cres­cent of pure gold in some in­stances. A bride elect sends sutkah[38] to her in­tend­ed hus­band, ac­com­pa­nied by a goat or kid, which must be tied to the leg of his bed­stead dur­ing the con­tin­uance of an eclipse: these of­fer­ings are af­ter­wards dis­tribut­ed in char­ity. Wom­en ex­pect­ing to be­come moth­ers are care­ful­ly kept awake dur­ing an eclipse, as they de­clare the in­fant's se­cu­ri­ty de­pends on the moth­er be­ing kept from sleep; they are not al­lowed to use a nee­dle, scis­sors, knife, or any oth­er in­stru­ment dur­ing an eclipse, for fear of draw­ing blood, which would be in­ju­ri­ous at that pe­ri­od, both to the moth­er and child; nei­ther are the an­imals in a sim­ilar state ne­glect­ed; a mix­ture of cow-​dung and drugs is rubbed over the bel­ly of such an­imals, whether cows, sheep, goats, &c., and all these are se­cure­ly housed un­til the plan­et is again re­splen­dent: they fan­cy that both the an­imal and its young would be en­dan­gered by ex­po­sure dur­ing the time of the eclipse.

The pow­er of the moon on wound­ed per­sons is be­lieved uni­ver­sal­ly to be of dan­ger­ous ten­den­cy. I have heard many ex­traor­di­nary re­la­tions by peo­ple who, as they tell me, have suf­fered from ex­po­sure to the moon whilst a wound was fresh. One per­son had re­ceived a se­vere sabre-​cut on his arm; the place was sewed up by the bar­ber (the on­ly sur­geon amongst the Na­tives), and be­ing much ex­haust­ed he laid down to sleep in the open air. The moon was near the full, and af­ter some hours' ex­po­sure to her in­flu­ence he awoke in great agony; the bar­ber ex­am­ined the arm ear­ly in the morn­ing and found the cut in a state of cor­rup­tion, the sewing hav­ing burst; the wound was cleansed, and dressed with pound­ed cam­phor; the place even­tu­al­ly healed, and the man lived many years to tell his sto­ry, al­ways declar­ing his be­lief that the moon had been the cause of his suf­fer­ings; he was the more cer­tain of this as he dreamed whilst ex­posed to her in­flu­ence, that a large black wom­an (an in­hab­itant of the moon) had wres­tled with him, and hurt his wound.

The usu­al ap­pli­ca­tion in In­dia to a fresh wound is that of slacked lime. A man in our em­ploy was break­ing wood, the head of the hatch­et came off, and the sharp edge fell with con­sid­er­able force on the poor crea­ture's foot; he bled pro­fuse­ly and faint­ed, lime was un­spar­ing­ly ap­plied, to the wound, the foot care­ful­ly wrapped up, and the man con­veyed to his hut on a char­poy (bed­stead), where he was kept qui­et with­out dis­turb­ing the wound; at the end of a fort­night he walked about, and in an­oth­er week re­turned to his labour.[39]

Lime is an ar­ti­cle of great ser­vice in the do­mes­tic econ­omy of the Na­tives. I have ex­pe­ri­enced the good ef­fects of this sim­ple rem­edy for burns or scalds: equal pro­por­tions of lime, wa­ter, and any kind of oil, made in­to a thin paste, and im­me­di­ate­ly ap­plied and re­peat­ed­ly moist­ened, will speed­ily re­move the ef­fects of a burn; and if ap­plied lat­er, even when a blis­ter has risen, the rem­edy nev­er fails: I can­not say how it might act on a wound, the con­se­quence of a ne­glect­ed burn.

The lime used with pawn by the na­tives of In­dia is con­sid­ered very ben­efi­cial to health; and they use it in great quan­ti­ties, con­sid­er­ing that they nev­er eat pawn with­out lime, and the most mod­er­ate pawn eaters in­dulge in the lux­ury at least eight times in the course of the day. The ben­efit of lime is worth the con­sid­er­ation of the med­ical world--as a pre­ven­tive in some cli­mates, as a ren­ovater in oth­ers.

Shubh-​bur­raat,[40] is the des­ig­na­tion of one of the months of the Mus­sul­mauns (you are aware their month is the du­ra­tion of the moon). The night of the full moon Shubh-​bur­raat is a pe­ri­od of great and in­ter­est­ing im­por­tance to the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple of ev­ery de­gree; for on this night they are per­suad­ed the fate of ev­ery hu­man be­ing is fixed in heav­en; and that what­ev­er is to be their doom is then reg­is­tered in the Book of Life. Those who are to re­tain health, life, pros­per­ity, or any oth­er bless­ing, and those who are to be vis­it­ed by sick­ness, sor­rows, ad­ver­si­ty or death; in short, what­ev­er is to oc­cur through­out the year is on this night as­sured­ly not­ed in heav­en for each in­di­vid­ual on earth.

On this night they are in­struct­ed al­so to re­mem­ber their friends and rel­atives who have been sep­arat­ed from them by death, and the in­junc­tion is fol­lowed up with much pi­ous re­spect and marked ven­er­ation. Food is cooked and por­tioned out in the name of each de­part­ed ob­ject of their re­gard, over which the el­der of the fam­ily,--if a Maul­vee is not avail­able,--reads a cer­tain form of prayer called Fah­teeah[41]; this done, each por­tion (if con­ve­nient) is con­veyed to the sev­er­al tombs where­in those friends are de­posit­ed; or if not con­ve­nient to send the food to the bury­ing ground, it is dis­tribut­ed amongst the poor of the city and the sub­urbs; the beg­gars con­gre­gat­ing in those places to in­dulge in the lux­uries pre­pared to the mem­ory of the dead. The food pre­pared on this oc­ca­sion must not con­tain any an­imal food. Bread of var­ious kinds, sweet rice, and mee­tah[42] (a mix­ture of sug­ar, ghee, and flour), are the usu­al dain­ties I have ob­served in these of­fer­ings. Fire­works are in uni­ver­sal re­quest on the night of Shubh-​bur­raat, which is re­quired to be passed in wake­ful­ness; and to this may be as­cribed the nev­er-​vary­ing cus­tom of let­ting them off: it is an amuse­ment these peo­ple take de­light in at all times, and on this oc­ca­sion most use­ful­ly, to keep them awake. The younger branch­es, at all events, de­rive this ben­efit from the pas­time.

The re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty make it a night of strict de­vo­tion; they of­fer prayers and in­ter­ces­sions for the souls of their de­part­ed friends, since they imag­ine that this pe­ri­od, of all oth­ers, is most favourable to prayer, as they be­lieve the heart is more open to the throne of mer­cy, the prayer more ef­fec­tu­al, and that the re­al pen­itent su­ing for par­don on the night of Shubh-​bur­raat, is cer­tain­ly heard and his sins for­giv­en.

The Sheah sect at­tach still greater im­por­tance to this night, as the an­niver­sary of the birth of Emaum Mhid­hie.[43] They al­so re­mem­ber Hasan and Ho­sein as mar­tyrs; and in mem­ory of their suf­fer­ings the zeearut[44] (cir­cuit as at Mahur­rum), is per­formed by walk­ing round the ground in front of their apart­ments, re­peat­ing the buri­al ser­vice, with some tri­fling al­ter­ations; like­wise the salaams to the Prophets and Emaums are du­ly per­formed dur­ing this night of fate.

There is a sin­gu­lar opin­ion cur­rent amongst the Mus­sul­mauns, that the trees hold con­verse at this mo­men­tous pe­ri­od.[45] The re­al­ly pi­ous char­ac­ters amongst the Mus­sul­mauns de­clare that they dis­coun­te­nance su­per­sti­tion in ev­ery way; but they strict­ly ad­here to ev­ery habit or cus­tom on record which was the prac­tice of Mahu­mud and his fam­ily, the Emaums. Of course, they do not think the ob­ser­vances of Shubh-​bur­raat are at all bor­der­ing on su­per­sti­tion, what­ev­er may be thought of the prac­tice by oth­ers.

[1] See p. 78.

[2] 'Idgah, the place where the rites of the 'Id fes­ti­val are con­duct­ed. It gen­er­al­ly con­sists of a pave­ment, with a wall to the west, fac­ing east.

[3] See p. 42.

[4] _An­garkha_.

[5] _Na­jib_, 'no­ble'; the half-​dis­ci­plined mili­tia of Na­tive States.

[6] _Kirch_, a straight thrust­ing sword.

[7] See p. 48.

[8] See p. 43.

[9] _Nal­ki_, a kind of lit­ter, the use of which was re­gard­ed as a mark of dig­ni­ty: see Slee­man, _Ram­bles_, p. 135.

[10] A coin worth, about Rs. 16.

[11] Haarh is a name giv­en to any sort of or­na­ment which we should des­ig­nate a neck­lace. The haarhs pre­sent­ed on these oc­ca­sions at the Oude court are com­posed of sil­ver ribands very pret­ti­ly plat­ted and con­fined at each di­vi­sion of plats by knobs cov­ered with sil­ver riband. The prices of these haarhs are from five to twen­ty-​five ru­pees each, de­pend­ing on the size. [_Au­thor_.] See p. 62.

[12] _'Itr_, essence of ros­es.

[13]_Khu­da hafiz_.

[14] _Jhul_.

[15] _Shahji_, 'my lord'.

[16] _Chap­kan_, the cas­sock-​like frock, which is the usu­al dress of re­spectable na­tives.

[17] _Laba­da_, a sort of over­coat.

[18] _Ka­mar­band_, 'loin-​band'.

[19] _La­haf_, a cor­rup­tion of _ghi­laf_, 'a wrap­per'.

[20] _Ru­mal_, 'face-​wiper'.

[21] _Za­min­dar_, 'a landown­er'.

[22] _Ra'iy­at_.

[23] Many na­tive gen­tle­men are al­lowed to be seat­ed in the king's pres­ence at court dai­ly, but not at the ban­quet, which is a dis­tinc­tion re­served on­ly for the no­bil­ity and favourites. [_Au­thor_.]

[24] For an ac­count of the an­imal fights be­fore Lord W. Bentinck in 1831 see Mrs. F. Parks, _Wan­der­ings of a Pil­grim_, i. 176 ff.; W. Knighton, _Pri­vate Life of an East­ern King_, p. 147 ff.

[25] _Nau­roz_. Spe­cial­ly a Per­sian feast: see Sir J. Mal­colm, _His­to­ry of Per­sia_,[2] ii. 341 _n_., 404; S.G.W. Ben­jamin, _Per­sia and the Per­sians_, p. 198; O.J. Wills, _The Land of the Li­on and the Sun_, ed. 1891, p. 48.

[26] _Nau­roz mubarak_.

[27] Bas­ant or spring feast, held at the ver­nal equinox.

[28] Sawan, the fourth month of the Hin­du year, Ju­ly-​Au­gust.

[29] The feast is held in hon­our of the myth­ical Khwa­ja Khizr, 'the green one', a wa­ter spir­it iden­ti­fied with the Prophet El­isha (see Sale on _Ko­ran_, xvi­ii. 63). The launch­ing of the lit­tle boats is, in essence, a form of mag­ic in­tend­ed to car­ry away the evils which men­ace the com­mu­ni­ty, and to se­cure abun­dant rain­fall.

[30] _Ilyas ki kishti_.

[31] This is known as Hi­lal.

[32] The Semites, like oth­er races, be­lieved in the in­flu­ence of the moon. 'The sun shall not strike thee by day, nor the moon by night' (Ps. cxxi. 6). It was be­lieved to cause blind­ness and epilep­sy. Sir J.G. Fraz­er has ex­haus­tive­ly dis­cussed the ques­tion of the in­flu­ence of the moon. The har­vest moon, in par­tic­ular, brings fer­til­ity, and hears the prayers of wom­en in tra­vail: the moon caus­es growth and de­cay, and she is dan­ger­ous to chil­dren. Many prac­ti­cal rules are based on her in­flu­ence at the var­ious phas­es (_The Gold­en Bough_[3] Part I, vol. ii, p. 128; Part IV, vol. ii, p. 132 ff.).

[33] 'The sixth house is Scor­pio, which is that of slaves and ser­vants, and of dis­eases' (Ab­ul Fa­zl, _Ak­bar­na­ma_, tr. H. Bev­eridge, ii. 12).

[34] Here the moon is sup­posed to ex­ert a cu­ra­tive in­flu­ence.

[35] Hin­dus be­lieve that dur­ing an eclipse the moon is be­ing stran­gled by a de­mon, Rahu. Cries are raised, drums and brazen pans are beat­en to scare him.

[36] Prop­er­ly the Mu'azz­in or of­fi­cial sum­mon­er to prayer.

[37] _Al­lahu ak­bar_.

[38] All of­fer­ings of in­ter­ces­sion or thanks­giv­ings are de­nom­inat­ed sutkah [_Au­thor_] (_sadaqah_, see p. 136).

[39] Lime lin­iment, com­posed of equal parts of lime-​wa­ter and a bland oil, is rec­og­nized in sur­gi­cal prac­tice.

[40] _Shab-​i-​bara'at_, 'the night of record', is a feast held on the 15th of the month Sha'ban, when a vig­il is kept, with prayers and il­lu­mi­na­tions. On this oc­ca­sion ser­vice in mem­ory of the de­ceased an­ces­tors of the fam­ily is per­formed. On this night the for­tunes of mor­tals dur­ing the com­ing year are said to be record­ed in Heav­en. See p. 51.

[41] Al-​Fati­hah, 'the open­ing one', the first chap­ter of the Ko­ran.

[42] _Mitha, mithai_, 'sweet­meats'.

[43] Imam Mah­di, see pp. 72, 76.

[44] _Zi­yarat_, see p. 15.

[45] Com­pare the orac­ular trees of the Greeks (Sir J.G. Fraz­er, _Pau­sa­nias_, ii. 160). For leg­ends of speak­ing trees in In­dia, W. Crooke, _Pop­ular Re­li­gion and Folk­lore of N. In­dia_,[2] ii. 89.