Note.—In dealing with these numbers our thoughts will naturally recur to the well-known sayings in the Scriptures:
“Five of them were wise, and Five of them were foolish.” And again, in the religion of the Jews, how the number Seven is used as a number of perfection; and again, the number Five in the appeal of Abraham, “Wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?”
Note.—Sectarian marks are usual amongst Hindus: It indicates difference of religious sects, not of castes. These are daily renewed on the forehead after the bath. The worshippers of Siva are known by the horizontal position of the mark, the worshippers of Vishnu by the vertical. The customary substances used are earths or white ashes from a sacred fire, saffron, sandal-wood, and white clay. Circlets are also used to distinguish sects as alluded to in Ezekiel ix. 4. Rosaries are universally used in India and elsewhere among Hindus and Moslems, and are composed of various kinds of wild seeds as “rudrakhs,” or of glass and amber, and with the Hindus pictures of Vishnu and Siva are often held in the hand with the beads to be counted.
THE DONKEY-MAN AND THE PRECIOUS STONE.
The sun had gone down one day in the Mahomedan village of “Huzro,” in the Hazara district, and it had become too late to work and too early for sleep, when the young men and others in the village congregated together to while away the time by narrating tales of the past.
Though really a Mahomedan village, there were several Hindu shops there, and some of the Hindus joined the company.
It was not long before one of the number was encouraged to tell a tale, and he began by saying “Yek vella: Once upon a time,” and then he stopped; then there was a general laugh, and he made bold to begin again, and then said:
Many years ago there was a Donkey-man, a poor man, who used to carry grain from place to place somewhere in the Punjab. One day as he was crossing a small river he picked up a stone of a reddish colour, and as it looked pretty and out of the common he thought he would keep it; and so to preserve it he tied it on to the neck of his best donkey, and there it hung as a sort of ornament. He did not know it was a gem, you see, but only thought it was a nice-looking stone, and that he had never seen one like it before.
As he journeyed on with his donkeys he had to cross the “Chenâb” river, and went down to the ferry, where he got into conversation with the Ferryman while they were all waiting for sufficient passengers and goods to cross the stream. Looking at the donkeys the Ferryman came at last to the donkey with the ornament on his neck, and he said to the grain-carrier, “Where did you find this pretty stone?” He told him that he was crossing the bed of a little river and saw it. The Ferryman looked at it again, but he did not know that it was a precious stone, yet he wanted it to decorate one of his oars; so he said to the Donkey-man, “You do not seem to care much for the stone; give it to me, and I will take you and your donkeys across for nothing.” So the Donkey-man agreed, and the Ferryman tied it on to his oar, and kept looking at it as he went on with his work, singing his usual song, “Chiko bhâyo, Chiko bhâyo, Chik!” and beating time with his feet.