This was the tragedy represented there:—
First came Hossein, six feet high, with fair complexion, and black beard cut close. He walks with dignity, as becomes so great a personage. His green and gold turban is like a crown, and shows his relationship to the Prophet. He is draped in a black cloak. Then the wife and sister came, veiled; then four little children; then attendants. Hossein seats himself in a large armchair on one of three dais; his family on a similar one opposite; and a sick youth, the son of Hossein, lies on a mattress on a third. His son was ill when Hossein died, but lived to become the progenitor of all the Sherífs of the East. Then the villain Shimr, inviting Hossein to return, was hooted, and a noble reply from Hossein was received with murmurs of applause. Then rises up Hossein's sister, imploring him not to go to destruction. The wife dare not speak; she may feel the most, but in the East she dares not show it, even by a murmur. Hossein says that he is called to be the Imám of the Faithful. If slain, he will die for the people of the true Faith; if he lives, he will do Allah's will. The sister cries aloud, and casting dust on her head, flings herself on his neck. He embraces her tenderly, but will go and die for the sins of all. Sobs burst from all sides—and real sobs. Everything is so earnest, so simple, so distinct, and expressive. Then the little daughter comes forth and caresses him; the child really weeps. He takes it in his arms, soothes, and puts it back to its mother's lap. He then goes over to his son's sick bed and bids him a tender adieu. A splendid horse then comes in, and the sister brings him a white linen shroud, and puts it on him. When about to mount, the child rushes from her mother's arms and catches his cloak. He sinks on the ground, and wraps the child in his arms. As he rises, the child pulls off the shroud, covers herself with it, and stretches herself on the earth. He takes it from her, and mounts his horse. The child flings herself in front of the horse's hoofs, and the animal stands still. A servant picks the child up, but she breaks away, and clings to the horse's legs; her little hands clutch its hoofs.
The audience have been sobbing the whole time, but now there is a perfect spasm of grief. An angel then comes, and offers to slay Hossein's enemies; but he refuses, and the angel throws dust over his head. Then he draws his scimitar. The villain Shimr appears, and they ride off. The battle, the treachery, want of water, and the slaying, are left to the imagination; and we next see the procession of the Imám's captive children, widow, and sister, and the headless corpse upon a bier. The procession of last night follows again, shrieking, "Ya Ali! Ya Hossein!" with beating of breasts. The tabuts are set up in every nook and corner, and are fanciful representations of the tombs of Hassan and Hossein—gay, glittering gimcracks and tinsel. They are carried through the streets by men and boys as merry as grigs, dancing and shouting, to fling them into the sea. The explanation is that the Shí'ahs mourn for Hossein with despair, but the Sunnis consider him not a martyr to be mourned for, and turn the occasion into ridicule; and these tabut processions are conducted by the Sunnis as a caricature, which sometimes ends in a serious fight.
We also came in for a regatta, and we received great hospitality on board the Squadron.
Richard's old Persian Moonshee.
During this journey we saw a great deal of Mirza Ali Akbar, who was Richard's old moonshee when he was a boy. We had a delightful Persian breakfast with him, of fruit, vegetables, every kind of sweets, and rice highly seasoned, rice with caraway seeds, pilao with saffron savoury and aromatic, prawn curry with plain rice, sweet rice with rose-water, spices, and sweet paste from Muscat. He had been very much wronged in some matter, and Richard was helping and instructing him how to put his case clearly before the public, he being quite an innocent man, of whatever charge was brought against him, though I forget what it was; but he died—like many others—before he was righted—as justice was slow. When he called upon Richard, his card was brought in, in large letters looking like the visiting-card of some middle-class respectable Englishman, with "Mirza Ally Akbar" upon it. "Hullo, Mirza," Richard said, after they had salaamed. "Are you any relation to Ally Sloper?" The Mirza laughed—that is, as nearly as an Eastern does laugh—and said, "No! but the English always call me Ally Akbar, so I found it was the shortest way to call myself so." It is surprising how often we have gone to places, and found the natives had changed their names to whatever the English chose to call them; for instance, a Señor Machado had become a Mr. Much-harder.
We saw a great deal also of Mr. and Mrs. MacLean, and Mr. Gratton Geary, editors of the papers. We visited the schools of the native girls; it was an English institution called the Alexandra, where they went through a good many performances, sang and recited in English and Guzeratee, and one girl, D. A. H. Wadia, illustrated well enough for a professional.
The beautiful moonlight nights are here spoilt by the air being redolent of burnt flesh (roast Hindú) and sandal-wood. Richard took me over to inspect the cotton-mills. There were some grand races, and the Nawáb and all the Eastern "big-wigs" were there; distance a mile and a half, and, as usual, whatever Hackney rode won. Long, lanky weedy whalers ran better than the Arabs bred there. We dined with the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Charles and Lady Staveley, in tent quarters. We used to frequent the burial-ground very often in search of a tomb we could not find, and at last we found it in the old Girgaum burial-grounds in the Sonápur quarter, which had long been closed as full. It was one of the characteristics of my husband that he could never bear to pass a countryman's grave, or a celebrated person's grave, without honouring it. This was a once celebrated man, yet, except Richard, no one of the present day knew anything about him, or his nameless grave—such is glory!
After many hot hours and days, and vain searching in parties amongst the twenty thousand tombs, we found a plain space containing a very old tombstone, with letters that required one to kneel down and trace with the finger. No "Sacred to," but only "Victor Jacquemont, born in Paris 28th August, 1801; arrived at Calcutta in May, 1829; and after travelling three and a half years in India, expired at Bombay on 7th December, 1832." He was a man of letters, a botanist, and naturalist, who is supposed to have pioneered the French to India, and had the Legion of Honour ("Correspondance de Victor Jacquemont," 2 vols., Paris, 1833, published a year after his death). He was a French Catholic and fellow-Bohemian, so we paid a tribute to his memory. I recited a "De profundis," and my husband gave directions to have the letters picked out and painted afresh, and the grave replanted to mark where he was buried. Jacquemont died in the house of one Nico, who wrote to his brother, M. Porphyre; he had three doctors, MacLellan, Kembell, and Henderson; treatment was 60 by 60 leeches, salivated, blistered, etc.; got worse after a quarrel with his black servants, and died of abscess on the liver, which burst internally. He had black vomit "c'était un baquet de macération," and was kept alive by animal soup and wine. He had a public funeral. These were all the details we were able to collect; but it was a great deal, after forty-six years of such utter forgetfulness that nobody knew where he was buried. We also saw a great deal of the philanthropist, Miss Mary Carpenter, and her work.
We went to the wedding feast of the daughter of Venayek Ramchunder Luxumonjee, at Bhau, Russell House, Girgaum Road. It was a magnificent entertainment, a long saloon brilliantly lit, every sort of luxurious carpet, crossed one upon another, hundreds of Easterns in gorgeous dresses. They say "we are just, but not kind," and it is true. There is no mixing of Society. There are few Burtons, and Stricklands of the Rudyard Kipling type. I regret to say that I was the only European lady. There was a Nach (Nautch). The host had natural dignified manners. He was gentlemanly, manly, courteous without servility, spoke excellent English, and was in nothing inferior, except in colour, to the most polished English gentleman. The little bride and bridegroom were aged nine and ten. The marriage feasts last for days, after which they each stay with their parents till they are ready for practical marriage. There are no more ceremonies; they are actually theoretically married to-day. The house was lit up like a transformation scene in a pantomime. Then we had to go and be vaccinated, for small-pox was raging; so we made a large party, and were about four hundred clustering round a cow at the hospital. Then Mr. Ormiston and his brother took us in a steam launch to see his work—the revolving light at the Prongs, the handsomest thing we had ever seen. The lighthouse is eight stories high, 169 feet. We then went to a Garden-party at Parell, Government House—something like a mild Chiswick party. There is so much hospitality that we dined out every night, and the drives out to dinner and back were delicious, on the balmy Indian nights. We saw Indian jugglery, such as the mango planted and growing before one's sight, the child being killed in the basket, and many other things which I, being a new-comer, was delighted with, and it amused Richard to see my astonishment.