Natives of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, walk on the tenth day with their heads uncovered, and without slippers, to the Kraabaallah, whatever may be the distance; and they fast until the third watch has passed, refraining from the hooqŭ, or from drinking water. At the Kraabaallah the funeral ceremony is performed, and the Taziya is committed to the grave with a solemnity equal to that which is observed when their dead are deposited in the tomb. The native ladies within the walls of the zenāna keep the fast with the greatest strictness, and observe all the ceremonies of the Muharram.
A religious man will neither ride nor wear shoes during the Muharram; and a pious Musulmān will neither eat nor drink out of a silver or a gold vessel.
“That person who shall drink out of a silver cup or cup of gold, you may say drinks a draught of hell-fire.” Muhammud said, “Do not wear silk clothes nor satin, nor drink out of gold or silver vessels, nor eat out of golden dishes; because these are for the infidels in the world, and for you in futurity.”
The lamps, which are made of ubruk (talc), or of the skeleton leaves of the peepul-tree, and lighted up in the houses of the faithful at this time, are beautifully made.
One day, on entering the verandah, my darzee (tailor), a Musulmān of the Shea sect, was sitting on the ground, holding a ghirgit (the scaly lizard, a sort of chameleon,) in one hand, while he beat it with a twig, exclaiming with each stroke he gave the poor little beast, “Ever to be accursed, and never sufficiently to be beaten!” The man was very unwilling to give up his captive, or to desist from putting it to torture; the creature was changing colour at every stroke. I made him release it, and asked him why he had beaten and cursed it so vehemently? The man replied, “Blessed be the spider! ever to be accursed, and never sufficiently to be beaten be the ghirgit! When the Imām, on whom be blessings, hid himself in a well from his pursuers, the spider weaved his web across the mouth of the well, to hide him from his enemies; the ghirgit,—the prying, inquisitive beast!—the ghirgit went to the well, he peered over, he stretched his neck this way, he stretched his neck that way (here he imitated the curious motion of the head natural to the animal); the pursuers were attracted, they observed the ghirgit looking over the well; they imitated his example, they discovered the Imām, they murdered him! Ever to be accursed, never sufficiently to be beaten be the ghirgit!”
Mohammud ordered a chameleon to be killed, and said, “it was a chameleon which blew the fire into which Nimrod threw Abraham.” “Whoever shall kill a chameleon at one stroke shall have one hundred good acts written for him; and whoever kills one at two strokes shall have less than one hundred good deeds written for him; and whoever shall kill one by three strokes shall have less written for him than the second.”
His Highness forbade the killing of four animals, the ant (before stinging), the bee, the woodpecker, the starling. It is criminal in a Shea, and indeed with Soonees, to kill pigeons, though they are recommended to eat them!
An alligator, seven feet in length, was caught in the Jumna, below our house, a few days ago; I had it prepared with arsenical soap, stuffed, and set out in the verandah, where it grins in hideous beauty, nailed down upon the carpenter’s large table, where it will remain until it stiffens into proper form.
My cabinet of curiosities and fondness of horrors ensured many a strange present from absent friends. A small military party were dispatched to capture a mud fort; on reaching the spot no enemy was to be discovered; they entered with all due precaution against ambush; an enormous tiger in a cage was the sole occupant. The tiger was sent down per boat to me,—the first prize of the campaign; on my refusal to accept the animal, he was forwarded to the accoutrement-maker of the officer, in Calcutta, in liquidation of his account! The tiger was sold at length to an American captain for 250 rupees, which just or very nearly paid the expenses of boat-hire, servants, meat, &c., contracted on his the tiger’s account. Such changes in his way of life must have puzzled his philosophy; the capture, the Ganges, and sea voyage ending in North America, will give him a queer idea of the best of all possible worlds; but he well deserves it, being a cruel, treacherous, bloodthirsty brute.
My eccentric friend also wrote to say he had at length procured for me an offering after my own heart, an enormous boa constrictor, perfectly tame, so domestic and sweet tempered, that at meals it would cross the room, displaying, as it advanced with undulating motion, its bright-striped and spotted skin, until, having gained your chair, it would coil its mazy folds around you, and tenderly putting its head over your shoulder, eat from your hand!