If such are the feelings of the infidel, what must be those of the believer? The Sunni makes it a season of silent grief and humiliation, whilst the Sheahs, or followers of Ali, abandon themselves to the wildest and most passionate demonstrations of sorrow.
Tazeahs, or representations of the shrine of Kerbela, of all sizes and shapes, more or less richly adorned with gilding, &c., are borne daily in procession for a period of many days, followed by crowds of the faithful, shouting “Hussain! Hosein!” beating their breasts, and indulging the most violent semblance of grief.
My friend, the cornet, drove me out one evening to witness the tumasha (sport). As we approached the spot where the greatest concourse was assembled, my ears were saluted by alternate shouts of what I was subsequently informed were intended for the words “Hussain, Hosein,” but uttered by the whole mass as sharply and compactly as a well-delivered platoon fire, or the fitful escapes of steam from an engine.
The English soldier, with the natural proneness of honest John Bull to effect a national assimilation whenever he can, calls these processions “Hobson, Jobson;” and it is but fair to allow, that “Hussain, Hosein,” when shouted forth in the manner described, sound exceedingly like “Hobson, Jobson.”
On reaching the dense crowd, in the centre of which the tazeah, like a ship on a heaving sea, rocked to and fro, a wild scene of excitement met our view. Here were numbers of Mahomedan troopers, in their undress, many of them carrying tulwars[[48]] under their arms, with fakeers, servants, and bazaar people, all lustily lamenting the fate of Hussain and Hosein.
The tazeah had a splendidly gilded dome, and in the front of it was the figure of a strange creature, with the body of a camel, and a long tapering neck, terminating with a female face shaded by jet black ringlets; round the neck of this creature, which I take it was intended to represent Borak, on which Mahomed made his nocturnal journey to heaven, were strings of gold coins.
All this magnificence was supplied at the expense, I was told, of a devout old begum, the left-handed wife of an invalid general at Chunar, with whom, as will appear, I became subsequently acquainted.
On the seventh night of the Mohurrum, it is usual to celebrate the marriage of Hussain’s daughter (nothing being perfect in this world without a little love) with her cousin, a gallant partisan of the house of Ali; Dhull Dhull too, the faithful steed of Hussain, his housings stuck full of arrows, forms a part of the pageant, and serves to create a still more lively image of the touching event which it is intended to commemorate.
The Mahomedans, when worked up to a high state of religious excitement and frenzy, on these occasions, are dangerous subjects to deal with; very little would then induce them to try the temper of their blades on the carcases of any description of infidel, Hindoo or Christian.
The relator was once at Allahabad when the great Hindoo festival of the Hoolee, a sort of Saturnalia, and the Mahomedan Mohurrum unluckily fell together; and was present with the judge, Mr. Chalmers, when a deputation from each of the religions waited upon him in connection with the subject of the apprehended bloodshed and disturbance, in case the processions of the two should meet.