[33] Dopatta, a sheet made of two breadths of cloth.
[34] Amongst the Muhammadans the proportion of widows has declined steadily since 1881, and is now only 143 per mille compared with 170 in that year. It would seem that the prejudices against widow-marriages are gradually becoming weaker.—Report Census of India, 1911, i. 273.
[35] [~A]y[~a], from Portuguese aia, 'a nurse'.
[36] After much, entreaty, this humble zealot was induced to take a sweet lime, occasionally, to cool her poor parched mouth. She survived the trial, and lived many years to repeat her practised abstinence at the return of Mahurrum. [Author.]
[37] Butkhanah.
[38] This was a primitive Semitic taboo (Exodus iii. 5; Joshua v. 15, &c.). The reason of this prohibition is that shoes could not be easily washed.—W.R. Smith, Religion of the Semites[2], 453.
[39] Mordaunt Ricketts was Resident at Lucknow between 1821 and 1830, when he was 'superannuated' owing to financial scandals, for the details of which see Sir G. Trevelyan, Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, cap. x; H.G. Keene, Here and There, 10; on November 1, 1824, he was married at Lucknow by Bishop Heber to the widow of George Ravenscroft, the civilian who was Collector of Cawnpore, and there embezzled large sums of money, the property of Government. He fled with his wife and child to Bhinga in Oudh, where, on May 6, 1823, he was murdered by Dacoits. The strange story is well told by Sleeman, A Journey through the Kingdom of Oudh, i. 112 ff.
[40] Persian ustad, ustadji, 'an instructor'.
[41] Lamentation for the dead was strictly prohibited by the Prophet; but, like all orientals, the Indian Musalmans indulge in it. (Mishkat, i, chap, vii.)
[42] Mulla, the Persian form of Maulavi, 'a doctor of law'.