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There were the rose-bushes round us, the stars above us, and from every quarter of the City came the boom of the big Mohurrum drums, You must know that the City is divided in fairly equal proportions between the Hindus and the Musalmans, and where both creeds belong to the fighting races, a big religious festival gives ample chance for trouble.
All day the Mohurrum drums beat in the City, and all day deputations of tearful Hindu gentlemen besieged the Deputy Commissioner with assurances that they would be murdered ere next dawning by the Muhammadans. 'Which, said the Deputy Commissioner, in confidence to the Head of Police, 'is a pretty fair indication that the Hindus are going to make 'emselves unpleasant.
After the fort had saluted, Lord Elgin landed amid the cheers of the crowd assembled at the ghaut to receive him, and proceeded to Government House, gratified to learn, not merely from the popular demonstrations, but from Lord Canning himself, that though happily the physical force he had brought with him was not required to act in defence of the city, still that the presence of a man of war larger than any former ship that ever anchored abreast of the Maidan, and whose guns commanded the city, was calculated to produce upon both the European and native population a most wholesome moral effect, more especially at a time when the near approach of the Mohurrum had created in men's minds an unusual degree of apprehension and excitement.
The sacred five, in the form of the outstretched hand, adorn nearly all Mohurrum symbols, from the toy trumpet and the top of the banner-pole to the horseshoe rod of the devotee and the 'tazia' or domed bier.
It is called the Mohurrum, and takes place on the shore of the Back Bay. They construct a great number of temples of gilt paper, and after marching with them in procession through the city, they cast them into the sea. I do not quite understand what it means; but the first month is usually a time of mourning and fasting in commemoration of the sufferings of the two nephews of the Prophet.
The Mohurrum, the great mourning-festival of the Muhammadans, was close at hand, and the things that Wali Dad said about religious fanaticism would have secured his expulsion from the loosest-thinking Muslim sect. There were the rose-bushes round us, the stars above us, and from every quarter of the City came the boom of the big Mohurrum drums.
How, think you, will the Mohurrum go this year? I think that there will be trouble." He turned down a side-street and left me alone with the stars and a sleepy Police patrol. Then I went to bed and dreamed that Wali Dad had sacked the City and I was made Vizier, with Lalun's silver huqa for mark of office.
The Mohurrum, the great mourning-festival of the Muhammadans, was close at hand, and the things that Wali Dad said about religious fanaticism would have secured his expulsion from the loosest-thinking Muslim sect.
Some of these spirits we can appease or coax into becoming guardian-angels by housing them in handsome cenotaphs; others we can lodge in the horse-shoe or in that great spirit-house, the tiger, letting them sport for a day or two in the bodies of our men and youths, who are adorned with yellow stripes symbolical of their rôle; while other more malevolent spirits can only be driven away by shouting, buffeting and drumming, such as characterize the Mohurrum season in Bombay.
This fast is to the Europeans what the Mohurrum is to us; only here no particular signs of sorrow are to be seen on account of the death of Aysa; all eat, drink, and enjoy themselves on this day as much as any other; or, from what I saw, I should say they rather indulged themselves a little more than usual.
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