Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XXV

Mus­sul­maun Devo­tees.--The Chillub­dhaars.--Pe­cu­liar mode of wor­ship.--Pro­pi­tia­to­ry of­fer­ings.--Sup­posed to be in­vul­ner­able to fire.--The Maad­haars or Duf­felees.--Char­ac­ter of the founder.--Pil­grim­age to his tomb.--Fe­males af­flict­ed on vis­it­ing it.--Ef­fects at­tribut­ed to the vi­ola­tion of the sanc­tu­ary by a for­eign­er.--Su­per­sti­tion of the Na­tives.--Anec­dote of Sheikh Sud­doo and the Genii.--The way of the world ex­em­pli­fied, a Khau­nie (Hin­doost­au­nie fa­ble).--Moral fa­ble.--The King who longed for fruit...Page 370

There are many class­es of men amongst the Mus­sul­mauns, who ei­ther ab­jure the world or seem to do so, in­de­pen­dent of those de­nom­inat­ed Dur­weish;-- such us the re­li­gions men­di­cants, &c., who have no earth­ly call­ing, and de­rive their sub­sis­tence from the free-​will of­fer­ings of their neigh­bours, or the boun­ty of the rich, who from re­spect for their hum­ble call­ing, and a hope of ben­efit from their prayers, or rather from the ven­er­ation of Mus­sul­mauns to­wards such of their faith as have re­nounced the world for the ser­vice of God.

The Chillub­dhaars[1] are a well-​known class of wan­der­ers; their founder was a Syaad, Ah­mud Kaabeer,[2] of whom many won­der­ful things are re­lat­ed suf­fi­cient to im­press on the weak mind a be­lief in his su­per­nat­ural as­cen­dan­cy. His pre­sumed pow­ers are said to have been chiefly in­stru­men­tal in cur­ing the sick or in re­mov­ing tem­po­ral af­flic­tions; but his ef­fec­tu­al prayers in be­half of peo­ple in dif­fi­cul­ty, they say, sur­passed those of any oth­er of the whole tribes of devo­tees that have at any age ex­ist­ed. His ad­mir­ers and fol­low­ers speak of him as hav­ing been in­vul­ner­able to fire. In his life­time he had forty dis­ci­ples or pupils con­stant­ly with him; at his death these forty sep­arat­ed, each in the course of time ac­cu­mu­lat­ing his forty pupils, af­ter the pat­tern of their founder, who al­so even­tu­al­ly be­came lead­ers, and so on, un­til at the present time, it is con­jec­tured, there are few places in Asia ex­empt from one or more de­tach­ments of these Chillub­dhaar prac­ti­cal beg­gars who are much ad­mired by the weak; and al­though they pro­fess the same tenets and rules of life with their founder, Syaad Ah­mud Kaabeer, yet, I be­lieve, no one gives the Chillub­dhaars of the present pe­ri­od cred­it for pos­sess­ing ei­ther the virtues or the pow­er of that man who set them so many bright ex­am­ples; nev­er­the­less, they are ap­plied to on emer­gen­cies by the ig­no­rant and the cred­ulous of the present day, court­ed by the weak, and tol­er­at­ed by all.

They all prac­tise one plan when­ev­er called up­on to re­move the dif­fi­cul­ty of any per­son who places suf­fi­cient con­fi­dence in their abil­ity. On such oc­ca­sions, a young heifer, two years old, is sup­plied by the per­son hav­ing a re­quest to make, af­ter which a fire of char­coal is made in an open space of ground, and the an­imal sac­ri­ficed ac­cord­ing to Mus­sul­maun form. The ten­der pieces of meat are se­lect­ed, spit­ted, and roast­ed over the fire, of which when cooked, all present are re­quest­ed to par­take. Whilst the meat is roast­ing, the Chillub­dhaars beat time with a small tam­bourine to a song or dirge ex­pres­sive of their love and re­spect to the mem­ory of the de­part­ed saint, their founder and pa­tron, and a hymn of praise to the Cre­ator.

The feast con­clud­ed, whilst the fire of char­coal re­tains a live­ly heat, these devo­tees com­mence danc­ing, still beat­ing their tam­bourines and call­ing out with an au­di­ble voice, 'There is but one God!--Mahu­mud is the Prophet of God!' Then they sing in praise of Ali, the de­scen­dants of the Prophet, and, last­ly, of Syaad Ah­mud Kaabeer their beloved saint. Each then puts his naked foot in the fire: some even throw them­selves up­on it,--their as­so­ciates tak­ing care to catch them be­fore they are well down,--oth­ers jump in­to the fire and out again in­stant­ly; last­ly, the whole as­sem­bly tram­ple and kick the re­main­ing em­bers about, whilst a spark re­mains to be quenched by this means.[3] These ef­forts, it is pre­tend­ed, are suf­fi­cient to re­move the dif­fi­cul­ties of the per­sons sup­ply­ing the heifer and the char­coal.

These men­di­cants live on pub­lic favour and con­tri­bu­tions; they wear clothes, are deemed harm­less, nev­er ask alms, but are al­ways will­ing to ac­cept them, and have no laws of celiba­cy, as is the case with some wan­der­ing beg­gars in In­dia, who are naked ex­cept the wrap­per; some­times they set­tle, mak­ing fresh con­verts, but many wan­der from city to city, al­ways find­ing peo­ple dis­posed to ad­min­is­ter to their ne­ces­si­ties. They are dis­tin­guished from oth­er sects, by each in­di­vid­ual car­ry­ing a small tam­bourine, and wear­ing cloth­ing of a deep buff colour.

There are an­oth­er set of wan­der­ing men­di­cants, who are called Mad­haar[4] beg­gars, or the Duf­felees,[5] by rea­son of the small hand-​drum they car­ry with them. These are the dis­ci­ples of the saint­ed Maad­haar, whose tomb is vis­it­ed an­nu­al­ly by lit­tle short of a mil­lion of peo­ple, men, wom­en, and chil­dren, at a place called Muck­un­pore, about twen­ty koss from Cawn­pore.

Maad­haar was es­teemed in his life­time a most per­fect Dur­weish, and his ad­mir­ers speak of the pow­er he then pos­sessed as still ex­ist­ing; in that his pure spir­it at stat­ed pe­ri­ods hov­ers near his last earth­ly re­mains, where the com­mon peo­ple make a sort of pil­grim­age to en­treat his in­flu­ence in their be­half. A mayl­lah[6] (fair) is the con­se­quence of this an­nu­al pil­grim­age, which con­tin­ues, I think, sev­en­teen days in suc­ces­sion, and brings to­geth­er, from many miles dis­tant, the men of busi­ness, the weak-​mind­ed, and the faith­ful devo­tees of ev­ery class in the Up­per Provinces.

From the re­spect paid to the mem­ory of Maad­haar, and the ex­pect­ed in­flu­ence of his spir­it at the shrine, the ig­no­rant peo­ple bring their sons to re­ceive the saint's bless­ing on their ten­der years. The man of busi­ness al­so presents him­self be­fore it, de­sirous to in­sure a share of suc­cess at the fair, and ul­ti­mate pros­per­ity at home. The devo­tee vis­its the shrine from a de­sire to in­crease in true wis­dom by the re­flect­ed light of the Maad­haar Dur­weish's pur­er spir­it. Wom­en hav­ing made vows to vis­it the shrine, come to ful­fil it at this pe­ri­od, if their hopes be re­al­ized in the birth of a son; and oth­ers to en­treat his in­flu­ence that their daugh­ters may be suit­ably mar­ried; in short, all who as­sem­ble at this mayl­lah have some prayer to of­fer, or ac­knowl­edg­ments to make, for they de­pend on the abun­dant pow­er and in­flu­ence of the saint's spir­it to sup­ply their sev­er­al wants or de­sires.

At the shrine of this saint, a de­scen­dant, or as is sus­pect­ed of­ten in such cas­es, a pre­tend­ed rel­ative, takes his sta­tion to col­lect, with all the ap­pear­ance of sanc­ti­ty and hu­mil­ity, the nuz­zas of­fered at the shrine of Maad­haar. The amount so col­lect­ed is enor­mous, if cred­it be giv­en to the re­ports in cir­cu­la­tion; for all vis­itors are ex­pect­ed to present an of­fer­ing, and most of the pil­grims do it for con­science sake. I knew a Mus­sul­maun who went from cu­rios­ity to this mayl­lah; he was ac­cost­ed rather rude­ly as he was quit­ting the tomb, with­out leav­ing a nuz­za; he told the guardian of the tomb he had pre­sent­ed the best nuz­za he pos­sessed, in a prayer for the soul of the de­part­ed; (as com­mand­ed ev­ery Mus­sul­maun should of­fer when draw­ing near the tomb of one of his own faith).

I have con­versed with a re­mark­ably de­vout per­son, on the nu­mer­ous ex­traor­di­nary sto­ries re­lat­ed of Maad­haar's life, and the sub­se­quent in­flu­ence of his tomb. He told me that wom­en can nev­er, with safe­ty to them­selves, en­ter the mau­soleum con­tain­ing his ash­es; they are im­me­di­ate­ly seized with vi­olent pains as if their whole body was im­mersed in flames of fire. I spoke rather doubt­ing­ly on this sub­ject, up­on which he as­sured me that he had known in­stances of one or two wom­en who had im­pru­dent­ly de­fied the dan­ger, and in­trud­ed with­in the mau­soleum, when their agony was ex­treme, and their suf­fer­ings for a long time pro­tract­ed, al­though they even­tu­al­ly re­cov­ered.

An­oth­er still more re­mark­able cir­cum­stance has been re­lat­ed to me by the Na­tives, for the truth of which I can­not ven­ture to vouch, al­though I have no rea­son to doubt the ve­rac­ity of the nar­ra­tors.

'A par­ty of for­eign­ers, en­camped near the fair, wished to see what was go­ing on at this far-​famed mayl­lah, and for the pur­pose of grat­ify­ing their cu­rios­ity, halt­ed on a cer­tain day in the vicin­ity of the Dur­gah, when the place was much thronged by the var­ious pil­grims to that shrine. The par­ty dined in their tent, but drank more wine than was con­sis­tent with pro­pri­ety, and one was par­tic­ular­ly over­come. When they sal­lied forth, at the close of the day, to vis­it this saint's tomb, their ap­proach was ob­served by the keep­ers, who ob­serv­ing how very un­fit the strangers ap­peared to en­ter the sanc­tu­ary of oth­er men's de­vo­tions,--the hal­lowed ground that was by them re­spect­ed,--the head-​keep­er very civil­ly ad­vanced as they moved to­wards the en­trance, re­quest­ing that they would de­sist from en­ter­ing in their ap­par­ent con­di­tion, con­trary to the rules of the place and peo­ple. The con­vivial par­ty then drew back, with­out con­test­ing the point, ex­cept­ing the one most dis­guised in liquor, who as­sert­ed his right to en­ter wher­ev­er and when­ev­er he thought good, nor would he be con­trolled by any man in In­dia.

'The keep­ers spoke very mild­ly to the tip­sy for­eign­er, and would have per­suad­ed him he was do­ing wrong, but he was not in a state to lis­ten to any ar­gu­ment dis­suad­ing him from his de­ter­mined pur­pose; they warned him that a se­vere pun­ish­ment must fol­low his dar­ing, as he pushed past them and reeled in­to the mau­soleum, tri­umph­ing at his suc­cess. He had ap­proached the tomb, when he was im­me­di­ate­ly seized with trem­bling, and sank sense­less on the floor; his friends with­out, ob­serv­ing his sit­ua­tion, ad­vanced and were as­sist­ed by the keep­ers in re­mov­ing the ap­par­ent­ly inan­imate body to the open air: wa­ter was pro­cured, and af­ter con­sid­er­able de­lay, re­turn­ing symp­toms of life were dis­cov­ered. When able to speak, he de­clared him­self to be on the eve of death, and in a few short hours he breathed his last.' The un­hap­py man may have died of apoplexy.

The ig­no­rant part of the pop­ula­tion of Hin­doost­aun hold a su­per­sti­tious be­lief in the oc­ca­sion­al vis­ita­tions of the spir­it of Sheikh Sud­doo.[7] It is very com­mon to hear the vul­gar peo­ple say if any one of their friends is af­flict­ed with melan­choly, hypochon­dria, &c., 'Ay, it is the spir­it of Sheikh Sud­doo has pos­sessed him.' In such cas­es the spir­it is to be dis­lodged from the af­flict­ed per­son by sweet­meats, to be dis­tribut­ed among the poor; to which is added, if pos­si­ble, the sac­ri­fice of a black goat. I am not quite sure that the night blind­ness, with which the low­er or­ders of Na­tives are fre­quent­ly at­tacked, has not some su­per­sti­tious al­lu­sion at­tached to it; but the on­ly rem­edy I have ev­er heard pre­scribed for it is, that the pa­tient should pro­cure the liv­er of a young kid, which must be grilled over the fire, and eat­en by the af­flict­ed per­son. The sto­ry of this Sheikh Sud­doo, which is of­ten re­lat­ed in the zeenah­nahs of the Mus­sul­mauns, is as fol­lows:--

'Sheikh Sud­doo was a very learned man, but a great hyp­ocrite, who passed days and nights in the mosque, and was fed by the char­ita­ble, his neigh­bours, from such viands as they pro­vid­ed dai­ly for the poor trav­eller, and those men who for­sake the world. The Sheikh some­times wan­dered in­to a for­est sel­dom pen­etrat­ed by the foot of man, where, on a cer­tain day, he dis­cov­ered a cop­per cup, cu­ri­ous­ly en­graved with char­ac­ters which he tried in vain with all his learn­ing to de­ci­pher. The Sheikh re­turned with the cup to the mosque, re­gret­ting that the char­ac­ters were un­known to him; but as he had long de­sired to have a good-​sized lamp, he fan­cied from the pe­cu­liar shape of his prize, that it would an­swer the very pur­pose, and the same night he ex­ult­ing­ly pre­pared his charaagh[8] (a light) in the en­graved ves­sel.

'The mo­ment he had ig­nit­ed one wick, he was sur­prised by the ap­pear­ance of a fig­ure, re­sem­bling a hu­man be­ing, stand­ing be­fore him, “Who art thou,” he de­mand­ed, “in­trud­ing at this hour on the pri­va­cy of a her­mit?”--“I come”, replied the fig­ure, “on the sum­mons from your lamp. That ves­sel, and who­ev­er pos­sess­es it, has four at­ten­dants, one of whom you see be­fore you, your slave. We are Genii, and can on­ly be sum­moned by the light­ing up of the ves­sel now be­fore you; the num­ber of your slaves will be in due at­ten­dance, al­ways guid­ed by as many wicks as it may be your plea­sure to light up for our sum­mons. De­mand our at­ten­dance, at any hour you please, we are bound to obey.”

'The Sheikh in­quired if he or his com­pan­ions pos­sessed any pow­er. “Pow­er”, replied the Genii, “be­longs to God alone, the Cre­ator of all things vis­ible and in­vis­ible; but by His per­mis­sion we are en­abled to per­form, to a cer­tain ex­tent, any rea­son­able ser­vice our mas­ter re­quires.”

'The Sheikh soon put their abil­ities to the test, and sat­is­fied him­self that these agents would aid and as­sist him in rais­ing his char­ac­ter with the world (for he cov­et­ed their praise), “They would”, he thought, “as­sured­ly be­lieve he was a pi­ous Dur­weish, when he could con­vince them by a ready com­pli­ance with their re­quests, which must seem to fol­low his prayers, and which he should be able to fur­ther now by the aid of the Genii.”

'The pre­tend­ed holy man em­ployed his at­ten­dant Genii ful­ly; many of his de­mands on their ser­vices were dif­fi­cult, and too of­ten re­volt­ing to them; yet whilst he re­tained the lamp in his pos­ses­sion, they were bound to obey his com­mands. He once heard of a king's daugh­ter, who was young and beau­ti­ful; he there­with sum­moned the Genii, and re­quired that they should con­vey the princess to him. They re­luc­tant­ly obeyed his com­mand, and the princess was the Sheikh's un­will­ing com­pan­ion in the mosque. On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, he de­sired the Genii to bring with­out de­lay, to the ground in front of his present abid­ing place, a very cu­ri­ous mosque sit­uat­ed many leagues dis­tant, the stones of which were so nice­ly ce­ment­ed to­geth­er, that no trace of the join­ing could be dis­cov­ered. The Genii re­ceived this com­mand with re­gret, but they were obliged to obey, and de­part­ed from the Sheikh's pres­ence to ex­ecute his un­wor­thy or­ders.

'It hap­pened that the mosque which the Sheikh cov­et­ed was the re­treat of a righ­teous man, who had sep­arat­ed from the world to serve his God, ven­er­able in years and de­vout in his du­ties. The Genii com­menced their labour of re­mov­ing the mosque; the good man who was at his de­vo­tions with­in, fan­cied an earth­quake was shak­ing the build­ing to its foun­da­tion, but as he trust­ed in God for preser­va­tion, he breathed a fer­vent prayer as he re­mained pros­trate be­fore Him.

'The shak­ing of the mosque con­tin­ued, and he was in­spired by a sud­den thought that in­duced him to be­lieve some su­per­nat­ural agen­cy was em­ployed against the holy house; he there­fore called out, “Who and what are ye, who thus sac­ri­le­gious­ly dis­turb the house of God!” The Genii ap­peared, and made known to what or­der of be­ings they be­longed, whose ser­vants they were, and the pur­pose of their mis­sion.

'“Be­gone this in­stant!” replied the pi­ous man, with a tone of au­thor­ity that de­prived them of strength: “a mo­ment's de­lay, and I will pray that you be con­sumed by fire! Know ye not that this is a mosque, holy, and erect­ed where­in to do ser­vice to the great and on­ly God? Would Sheikh Sud­doo add to his enor­mi­ties by forc­ing the house of God from its foun­da­tion? Away, ye ser­vants of the wicked Sheikh, or meet the fire that awaits you by a mo­ment's fur­ther de­lay!”

'The Genii fled in haste to their pro­fane em­ploy­er, whose rage was un­bound­ed at their dis­obe­di­ence, as he termed their re­turn with­out the mosque; he raved, stormed, and re­viled his slaves in bit­ter sar­casms, when they, hearti­ly tired of the Sheikh's servi­tude, caught up the cop­per ves­sel, and, in his strug­gle to re­sist the Genii, he was thrown with vi­olence on the ground, when his wicked soul was sud­den­ly sep­arat­ed from his most im­pure body.'

This sto­ry re­ceives many al­ter­ations and ad­di­tions, agree­able to the tal­ent and the in­cli­na­tion of the per­son re­lat­ing it in Na­tive so­ci­ety; but as there once was a per­son on whose his­to­ry it has been found­ed, they do not de­nom­inate it fab­ulous or khau­nie.[9] The fol­low­ing, which I am about to copy from a trans­la­tion of my hus­band's, is re­al­ly a mere fa­ble; and, how­ev­er tri­fling and child­ish it may ap­pear, I feel bound to in­sert it, as one among those things which serves to il­lus­trate the char­ac­ter of the peo­ple I have un­der­tak­en to de­scribe; mere­ly adding, that all these fa­bles prove an un­ceas­ing en­ter­tain­ment in the zeenah­nah, with fe­males who can­not them­selves read, ei­ther for amuse­ment or in­struc­tion:--

'A cer­tain man was trav­el­ling on horse­back through an im­mense for­est; and when he came to a par­tic­ular spot, he ob­served fire con­sum­ing some bush­es, in the cen­tre of which was a mon­strous large snake. The Snake was in dan­ger of be­ing de­stroyed by the flames, so he called to the Trav­eller, in a voice of de­spair--“Oh! good Sahib, save me, or I per­ish!”[10]

'The Trav­eller was a very ten­der-​heart­ed crea­ture, prone to pity the painful suf­fer­ings of ev­ery liv­ing crea­ture, whether man or an­imal; and there­fore be­gan to de­vise some scheme for lib­er­at­ing the Snake from the de­vour­ing flames. His horse's corn bag, which was made of leather, hung dan­gling by a rope from the crup­per; this, he thought, would be the best thing he could of­fer to the dis­tressed Snake. Ac­cord­ing­ly, hold­ing fast by the rope, he threw the bag to­wards the flames, and de­sired the Snake to has­ten in­to it, who im­me­di­ate­ly ac­cept­ed the of­fered aid, and the Trav­eller drew him out of his per­ilous sit­ua­tion.

'No soon­er was the Snake re­leased from dan­ger, than, un­grate­ful for the ser­vices he had re­ceived from the Trav­eller, he sprang to­wards him, with the pur­pose of wound­ing his de­liv­er­er. This, how­ev­er, he failed to ac­com­plish, for the Trav­eller drew back in time to es­cape the at­tack; and de­mand­ed of his en­emy his rea­sons for such base in­grat­itude, say­ing--“Have I not saved your life by my prompt as­sis­tance? What a worth­less rep­tile art thou! Is this thy mode of re­ward­ing ben­efits?”--“Oh!” said the Snake, “I am on­ly im­itat­ing the way of the world; who ev­er thinks of re­turn­ing good for good? No, no! ev­ery ben­efit re­ceived by the crea­ture of this world is re­ward­ed to the donor by an un­grate­ful re­turn. I tell you, good Trav­eller, I am on­ly fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple set me in the way of the world.”

'“I shall not take your word for it,” said the Trav­eller in re­ply; “but if I can be con­vinced that what you say is true, you shall be wel­come to bite me.”--“Agreed,” said the Snake; and off they set to­geth­er in search of ad­ven­tures.

'The first ob­ject they met was a large Pepul-​tree[11] whose branch­es spread out an invit­ing shel­ter to the weary trav­eller to re­pose un­der, with­out rent or tax. The Pepul-​tree was asked, “Whether it was con­sis­tent with the way of the world for the Snake to try to wound the man who had pre­served him from de­struc­tion.”

'The Pepul-​tree replied, “To fol­low in the way of the world, I should say the Snake was jus­ti­fied. A good re­turn is nev­er now-​a-​days ten­dered for a ben­efit re­ceived by mere worldlings, as I can bear wit­ness by my own suf­fer­ings. Lis­ten to my com­plaint:--Here in this soli­tary jun­gle, where nei­ther hut nor man­sion is to be found, I spread forth my well-​clothed branch­es,--a wel­come shel­ter to the pass­ing trav­eller from the burn­ing heat of the noon­tide sun, or the del­uge poured out from the over-​charged cloud;---un­der my cov­er they cook their meal, and my falling leaves sup­ply them with fu­el, as al­so with a bed on which they may re­cline their weary limbs. Think you, when they have thus prof­it­ed by the good I have done them, that they are grate­ful for my ser­vices?--Oh, no! the in­grates de­spoil the sym­me­try of my form, break off my branch­es with vi­olence, and trudge off tri­umphant­ly with the spoil which may serve them for fu­el for cook­ing at their next stage. So you see the Snake is right; he has but fol­lowed the way of the world.”

'The Snake ex­ult­ing­ly led the way in search of oth­er proofs by which he should be jus­ti­fied. They fell in with a man who was by oc­cu­pa­tion a camel-​driv­er. The Man be­ing made ac­quaint­ed with the point at is­sue, de­sired to be heard, as he could prove by his own tale that the Snake's in­grat­itude was a true pic­ture of the way of the world:--"I was the sole pro­pri­etor of a very fine strong camel, by whose labour I earned a hand­some com­pe­tence for each day's pro­vi­sion of my­self and fam­ily, in con­vey­ing goods and some­times trav­ellers from place to place, as my good for­tune served me. On a cer­tain day, re­turn­ing home through an in­tri­cate wood, I drew near to a poor blind man who was seat­ed on the ground lament­ing his hard fate. Hear­ing my camel's feet ad­vance, he re­dou­bled his cries of dis­tress, call­ing loud­ly for help and as­sis­tance. His piteous cries won up­on the ten­der feel­ings of my heart; so I drew near to in­quire in­to his sit­ua­tion, he told me with tears and sobs, that he was trav­el­ling on foot from his home to vis­it his re­la­tions at the next town; that he had been at­tacked by rob­bers, his prop­er­ty tak­en from him by vi­olence, and that the boy, his guide, was forced from him by the ban­dit­ti as a slave; and here, added the blind man, must I per­ish, for I can nei­ther see my way home, nor search for food; in this lone place my friends will nev­er think to seek me, and my body will be the feast for jack­als ere the morn­ing dawns.

'"The poor man's sto­ry made so deep an im­pres­sion on my mind, that I re­solved on as­sist­ing him; ac­cord­ing­ly my camel was made to kneel down, I seat­ed the blind man safe­ly on my beast, and set off with him to the city he called his home. Ar­rived at the city gates, I low­ered my camel, and of­fered to as­sist the poor man in de­scend­ing from his seat; but, to my as­ton­ish­ment, he com­menced abus­ing me for my barefaced wicked­ness, col­lect­ed a mob around us, by his cries for help from his per­se­cu­tor, de­clared him­self the mas­ter of the camel, and ac­cused me of at­tempt­ing to rob him now as I had done his broth­er be­fore.

'"So plau­si­ble was his speech--so ap­par­ent­ly in­no­cent and just his de­mands--that the whole col­lect­ed pop­ulace be­lieved I was ac­tu­al­ly at­tempt­ing to de­fraud the blind man of his prop­er­ty, and treat­ed me in con­se­quence with great sever­ity. I de­mand­ed to be tak­en be­fore the Kauzy of the city. 'Yes yes,' said the blind man, 'we will have you be­fore the Kauzy'; and away we went, ac­com­pa­nied by the crowd who had es­poused the blind man's cause against me.

'“The blind man pre­ferred his claim, and ad­vo­cat­ed his own cause with so many ar­gu­ments of ap­par­ent jus­tice, that I was not al­lowed a voice in the busi­ness; and in the end I was sen­tenced to be thrust out of the city as a thief and vagabond, with a threat of still greater pun­ish­ment if I dared to re­turn. Here ends my sad tale; and you may judge for your­self, oh, Trav­eller! how tru­ly the Snake has proved to you that he fol­lows but the way of the world!”

* * * * *

'As they pur­sued their way in search of fur­ther con­vic­tion, they met a Fox, whose wis­dom and sagac­ity was con­sult­ed on the im­por­tant ques­tion. Hav­ing heard the whole his­to­ry with be­com­ing grav­ity, the Fox ad­dressed the Trav­eller:--“You can have no good rea­son to sup­pose, Mr. Trav­eller, that in your case there should be any de­vi­ation from the gen­er­al rule. I have of­ten been obliged to suf­fer the vilest re­turns from friends whom I have been ac­tive to oblige; but I am rather cu­ri­ous to see the way you ef­fect­ed the re­lease of the Snake from the fire, for I will can­did­ly con­fess my­self so stupid as not clear­ly to un­der­stand the de­scrip­tion you have both at­tempt­ed to give. I shall judge the mer­its of the case bet­ter if I see it per­formed.”

'To this pro­pos­al the Snake and Trav­eller agreed: and when the corn bag was thrown to­wards the Snake, he crept in­to it as be­fore. The Fox then called out to the Trav­eller “Draw quick­ly!” he did so, and the Snake was caught by a noose in the cord which the Fox had con­trived un­per­ceived, by which the Snake was se­cured fast round the mid­dle. “Now,” said the Fox, “bruise your en­emy, and thus re­lieve the world of one base in­hab­itant!”'[12]

This fa­ble is fre­quent­ly en­larged and em­bel­lished by the re­citer to a con­sid­er­able ex­tent, by in­tro­duc­ing many dif­fer­ent ob­jects an­imate and inan­imate, to elu­ci­date the ques­tion be­fore the Fox ar­rives, who is gen­er­al­ly brought in to moral the fa­ble.

I trust to be ex­cused for tran­scrib­ing the fol­low­ing moral fa­ble which was trans­lat­ed from the Per­sian by my hus­band for my amuse­ment, bear­ing the ti­tle of 'The King who longed for an un­known fruit:'--

'A cer­tain King was so great a tyrant, that his ser­vants and sub­jects dread­ed each burst of anger, as it were the pre­lude to their own an­ni­hi­la­tion. The ex­er­cise of his will was as ab­so­lute as his pow­er; he had on­ly to com­mand, and obe­di­ence fol­lowed, how­ev­er dif­fi­cult or in­con­ve­nient to the peo­ple who served un­der him.

'This tyrant dreamed one night that he was eat­ing fruit of an ex­traor­di­nary flavour and qual­ity. He had nev­er in his whole life seen fruit of the kind, nei­ther had he heard such de­scribed by trav­ellers; yet when he ru­mi­nat­ed on the sub­ject in the morn­ing he was re­solved to have fruit of the same sort his dream pre­sent­ed, or his peo­ple should suf­fer for his dis­ap­point­ment.

'The King re­lat­ed his dream, and with it his com­mands to his Vizier, his courtiers, and at­ten­dants, that fruit of the same de­scrip­tion should be brought be­fore him with­in sev­en days; in de­fault of which he vowed solemn­ly that death should be the por­tion of his Vizier, his courtiers, and ser­vants. They all knew the King meant to be obeyed, by the earnest­ness of his man­ner, and they trem­bled un­der the weight of his per­plex­ing or­ders; each, there­fore, was speed­ily en­gaged in the all-​im­por­tant search. The whole em­pire was can­vassed, and all the busi­ness of the Court was sus­pend­ed to sat­is­fy the whim of the Monarch, with­out avail; ter­ror and dis­may marked the coun­te­nance of the whole city--for cer­tain death await­ed these ser­vants of the Court--and there was but now one day left to their hopes. The city, the sub­urbs, the provinces, had been searched; dis­ap­point­ment fol­lowed from ev­ery quar­ter, and the threat­ened par­ty gave up their hearts to de­spair.

'A cer­tain Dur­weish, know­ing the con­ster­na­tion of the peo­ple, and feel­ing pity for their un­mer­it­ed suf­fer­ings, sent for the Vizier pri­vate­ly. “I am not”, said the Dur­weish, “by any means anx­ious to please the van­ity and sil­ly wish­es of your mas­ter, the King, but I do hear with pity the state of de­spair you and your fel­lows are re­duced to, by the un­suc­cess­ful re­sults of your search af­ter the fruit, and the cer­tain con­se­quences which are to fol­low your fail­ure.”

'Then giv­ing the Vizier a frag­ment of a bro­ken pitch­er, on which was ci­phered un­known char­ac­ters, he told him to take it with him to a cer­tain tomb, sit­uat­ed in the sub­urbs of the roy­al city, (di­rect­ing him to the spot with great ex­act­ness), and cast­ing the frag­ment on the tomb, to fol­low the di­rec­tions he would there re­ceive; he fur­ther de­sired him to be se­cret, to go alone, and at mid­night.

'The now hope-​in­spired Vizier went as de­sired at mid­night, and cast the frag­ment on the tomb, which in­stant­ly opened to him. He then de­scend­ed a flight of steps, from the foot of which, at a lit­tle dis­tance, he first es­pied a light not larg­er than a ta­per, but which in­creased as he went on un­til the full splen­dour of noon­day suc­ceed­ed. Pro­ceed­ing with con­fi­dence, re­vived hope cheered his heart, an­tic­ipat­ing that by suc­cess so many lives be­sides his own would be pre­served through his hum­ble en­deav­ours; and that life would be more than dou­bly dear, as the prospect of los­ing the gift had em­bit­tered the last few days so severe­ly.

'The Vizier passed on coura­geous­ly through halls, cor­ri­dors, and apart­ments of mag­nif­icent struc­ture, dec­orat­ed and fur­nished in the most per­fect style of el­egant neat­ness. Ev­ery­thing he saw bore marks of splen­dour. The King's palace was then re­mem­bered in all its cost­li­ness, to be as much in­fe­ri­or to the present scene as could be de­tect­ed by the lap­idary's cor­rect eye, when com­par­ing the di­amond with the peb­ble.

'He was per­fect­ly en­tranced as he gazed on the emer­ald gate, through which he had to pass to en­ter a gar­den of lux­uri­ant beau­ty, where ev­ery shrub, plant, flow­er, and fruit teemed with rich­ness. In the cen­tre of a walk an old man was seat­ed in a chair of bur­nished gold, clad in the cos­tume of the coun­try, who seemed to be en­gaged in breath­ing the sweet odours by which he was sur­round­ed with a calm and tran­quil coun­te­nance of joy. “I know your busi­ness,” said the pos­ses­sor of this par­adise, to the Vizier as he ad­vanced to­wards him; “you are come to ob­tain fruit from this tree, which bows its branch­es to the earth with the weight and num­ber of its bur­den. Take one on­ly; this is the fruit your mas­ter's dream pic­tured to his fan­cy.”

'Full of joy at the prospect of re­lease from the dread­ed anger of his roy­al mas­ter, the Vizier hasti­ly plucked the fruit, and re­treat­ed by the way he came, with­out wait­ing to in­quire what the old man meant by an ex­cla­ma­tion he ut­tered at part­ing, which at the time seemed of less­er im­port than he af­ter­wards imag­ined; but “Alas, the world” was re­called to his mem­ory on his way back to the palace, and haunt­ed his mind so strong­ly that he be­came rest­less and un­easy, even af­ter the King had con­ferred hon­ours and favours in­nu­mer­able on him for his suc­cess­ful ef­forts in procur­ing that fruit which had nev­er be­fore been seen by any crea­ture on earth but by the King, and by him on­ly in a dream. “Alas, the world!” was like a dark en­ve­lope over ev­ery at­tempt to be cheer­ful; an im­pen­etra­ble cloud seemed to per­vade the Vizier's mind; he could think of noth­ing but the part­ing words of the old man, and his own fol­ly in not in­quir­ing his mean­ing.

'The Vizier at last went to the same Dur­weish who had be­friend­ed him in his hour of need, and re­lat­ed to him the ob­sta­cle to his en­joy­ment of the bless­ings and hon­ours which had crowned his suc­cess, and hoped from this holy-​mind­ed man to as­cer­tain the mean­ing of that per­plex­ing sen­tence, “Alas, the world!” The Dur­weish could not, or would not ex­plain the old man's mean­ing; but will­ing to do the Vizier all pos­si­ble ser­vice, he pro­posed giv­ing him again the nec­es­sary pass­port to the in­hab­itant of the gar­den.

'The frag­ment of a pitch­er was again traced with the mys­tic char­ac­ters, and with this in his hand the Vizier at mid­night sought the tomb, where he found as easy ac­cess as on the for­mer oc­ca­sion. Ev­ery­thing he saw seemed dou­bly beau­ti­ful to his imag­ina­tion since his for­mer vis­it. He en­tered by the emer­ald gate and found the old man en­joy­ing the mag­nif­icent and sense-​de­vour­ing scene, with as much de­light as mor­tals are wont to show when con­tent fills the heart of man.

'“I know your sec­ond er­rand, my friend,” said the old man, "and am quite as will­ing to oblige you as on your first vis­it. Know then, Vizier, that whilst an in­hab­itant of earth, I fol­lowed the hum­ble oc­cu­pa­tion of a vil­lage bar­ber; by shav­ing and par­ing nails I earned my dai­ly bread, and main­tained my fam­ily. Some­times I col­lect­ed ten pice in my day of labour from house to house, and if twelve crowned my ef­forts I was for­tu­nate.

'"Many years passed over my head in this way, when one day I was less suc­cess­ful in my call­ing, and but half my usu­al earn­ings was all I had gained. On my way home I was ru­mi­nat­ing on the scant­iness of the meal like­ly to be pro­cured by five pice for my fam­ily of sev­en peo­ple; the sea­son was one of such great scarci­ty, that ten pice on oth­er days had been of late bare­ly suf­fi­cient to pro­cure our dai­ly food; and even with twelve we thought our wants had been but in­ad­equate­ly sup­plied. I went on griev­ing,--more for my fam­ily than my­self, it is true,--and could have cried at the thought of the small por­tion of bread and dhall I should see al­lot­ted to each in­di­vid­ual de­pen­dant on me.

'"In my progress to­wards home, whilst re­gret­ting my pover­ty, I saw an un­for­tu­nate beg­gar, whose earnest en­treaty seemed to make no im­pres­sion on those who passed him by; for, in truth, when mon­ey is scarce and corn dear, peo­ple's hearts grow some­what cold to the dis­tress­es of those who have no claim by kin­dred ties. But with me it was oth­er­ways: my scant­iness seemed to make me more ten­der to the sor­rows of my fel­low-​crea­tures. Poor soul, said I to my­self, thou art starv­ing, and no one gives ear to thy com­plaints; now if I take home this scanty pro­duce of my day's labour, it will not give a meal to all my house­hold; be­sides, they dined with me tol­er­ably well yes­ter­day. We shall not starve by one day's fast­ing; to-​mor­row Di­vine Prov­idence may send me in the way of more beard­ed men than I have met to-​day. I am re­solved this poor man shall have the ben­efit of a good meal for once, which he sup­pli­cates for in the name of God.

'"I then went to the beg­gar and threw the five pice in­to his up­held wrap­per. 'There, broth­er,' said I, 'it is all I have; go, make your­self hap­py in a good meal, and re­mem­ber me in your prayers.' 'May Heav­en give you plen­ty in this world and bless your soul in the next!' was his on­ly re­sponse. That prayer was heard, for dur­ing my fur­ther so­journ on earth abun­dance crowned my board; and here, it is un­nec­es­sary to re­mark on the boun­ties by which you per­ceive I am sur­round­ed.

'“That I said _Alas, the world!_ was from the re­flec­tion that I did but one act of re­al char­ity whilst I re­mained in it, and see what an abun­dance re­wards me here. Had I known how such things are re­ward­ed here­after, I should have been more care­ful to have em­braced the pass­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, while I walked with my fel­low-​man on earth. That I said, _Alas, the world_! to you, was an in­tend­ed ad­mo­ni­tion to mankind; to con­vince them of the bless­ings be­stowed in this world of bliss eter­nal, in re­ward for ev­ery prop­er use to which the ben­efits they re­ceived in their pro­ba­tion­ary state of ex­is­tence may have been de­vot­ed. Go, friend! and prof­it by the ex­am­ple I present of heav­en­ly re­wards! Per­se­vere in a course of prac­ti­cal char­ity in that world you still in­hab­it; and se­cure, whilst you may, the blessed re­wards of eter­ni­ty!”'

[1] This term does not ap­pear in the or­di­nary dic­tio­nar­ies or Cen­sus re­ports. Sir C. Lyall, with much prob­abil­ity, sug­gests that the cor­rect form is Cha­lap­dar, 'a cym­bal play­er'.

[2] A saint, Sayyid Ah­mad Kabir, is buried at Bi­jaimandil, Del­hi. T.W. Beale, _Ori­en­tal Bi­ograph­ical Dic­tio­nary, s.v._

[3] Fire-​walk­ing is prac­tised by many Musalman devo­tees. In a case record­ed on the NW. fron­tier, a fakir and oth­er per­sons walked through a fire-​trench and showed no signs of in­jury; oth­ers came out with blis­tered feet and were jeered at as un­ortho­dox Musalmans; a young Sikh, shout­ing his Sikh bat­tle-​cry, per­formed the feat, and as he es­caped un­in­jured, a ri­ot was with dif­fi­cul­ty pre­vent­ed.--T.L. Pen­nell, _Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Fron­tier_, 1909, p. 37, See M.L. Dames, 'Or­deals by Fire in the Pun­jab' (_Jour­nal An­thro­po­log­ical So­ci­ety, Bom­bay_, vol. iv). The sub­ject is ful­ly dis­cussed by Sir J. Fraz­er, _The Gold­en Bough_[3], part vii, vol. ii, 1913, pp. 5 ff.

[4] Madari fakirs, who take their names from Ba­di-​ud-​din Madar Shah, a dis­ci­ple of Shaikh Muham­mad Tai­fu­ri Bas­ta­mi, who died A.D. 1434 at the ago of 124 years, and is buried at Makan­pur in the Cawn­pur Dis­trict, where an an­nu­al fair is held at his tomb. On the an­niver­sary of his death food is of­fered here, and amulets _(bad­dhi)_ are hung round the necks of chil­dren. Some light a char­coal fire, sprin­kle ground san­dal­wood on it, and jump­ing in­to it, tread out the em­bers with their feet, shout­ing out _dam Madar_, 'by the breath of Madar!' the phrase be­ing re­gard­ed as a charm against snake-​bite and scor­pi­on stings. Af­ter the fire-​walk the feet of the per­form­ers are washed and are found to be un­in­jured. Oth­ers vow a black cow, sac­ri­fice it, and dis­tribute the meat to beg­gars. The rite is of Hin­du ori­gin, and Hin­dus be­lieve that the saint is an in­car­na­tion of their god Lak­sh­mana.--Jaf­fur Shar­reef, _Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, 158 f.: W. Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the NW. P. and Oudh_, iii. 397 ff.

[5] Dafali, from _daf_, a drum.

[6] _Mela_.

[7] Shaikh Sad­du is the spe­cial saint of wom­en. His name was Muhi-​ud-​din, and he lived at Am­ro­ha or Samb­hal, in the Unit­ed Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Some un­ortho­dox Musalmans of­fer food in the name, and hold a ses­sion, in which a fe­male devo­tee be­comes pos­sessed. A wom­an who wants a child says to her: 'La­dy! I of­fer my life to you that I may have a child', where­upon the devo­tee gives her be­tel which she has chewed, or sweets, and this is sup­posed to bring about the de­sired re­sult (Jaf­fur Shur­reef, _Qanoon-​e-​Is­lam_, 184 f: W. Crooke, _Pop­ular Re­li­gion and Folk­lore of North­ern In­dia_, i. 204). In Bi­har it is said that he had a lamp with four wicks, on light­ing which, four Jinns ap­peared, and he used them for the pur­pose of de­bauch­ery. Fi­nal­ly, an­oth­er Jinn slew him. Peo­ple be­come pos­sessed in his name, and when sum­moned in cas­es of ill­ness or trou­ble, an­nounce that a goat or a cock must be sac­ri­ficed to the saint (_Cen­sus Re­port, Ben­gal_, 1901, i. 180).

[8] _Chi­ragh_, an earth­en­ware cup in which a wick is light­ed.

[9] _Ka­hani_, a folk-​tale.

[10] This tale comes from the Nala-​Damayan­ti Saga. Nala finds a snake in dan­ger of death from a jun­gle fire, saves it, and is bit­ten by the rep­tile, in the fore­head, which caus­es him to be­come weak, de­formed, and black in colour. The snake turns out to be the King Snake, Karko­ta­ka. He says to Nala: 'I gave you this bite for your good, as you will soon learn, in or­der that your de­for­mi­ty may con­ceal you in car­ry­ing out your plans' (C.H. Tawney, _Katha-​sar­al-​Sagara_, i. 564 f.: C.H. Bom­pas, _Folk­lore of the San­tal Par­ganas_, 149 ff.).

[11] _Pi­pal, Fi­cus re­li­giosa_.

[12] A com­mon In­di­an folk-​tale. In one of the most com­mon ver­sions the jack­al tricks the un­grate­ful tiger, and in­duces him to go back to his cage.