Observations on the Mussulmauns of India Part 26

[2] This is intended to scare evil spirits, but has become a mere form of announcing the joyful event.

[3] After the first bath pieces of black thread are tied round the child's wrist and ankle as protection.

[4] _Amaltas, Ca.s.sia fistula_

[5] The purgative draught (_guthl_) is usually made of aniseed, myro-bolans, dried red rose leaves, senna, and the droppings of mice or goats.--_Bombay Gazetteer_, ix, part ii, 153.

[6] _Gudri_.

[7] _Ta'awiz_.

[8] Among the Khojahs of Bombay a stool is placed near the mother's bed, and as each, of the female relatives comes in she strews a little rice on the stool, lays on the ground a gold or silver anklet as a gift for the child, and bending over mother and baby, pa.s.ses her hands over them, and cracks her finger-joints against her own temples, in order to take all their ill luck upon herself.--_Bombay Gazetteer_, ix, part ii, 45.

[9] _Duli_: see p. 184.

[10] _Salgirah_ or _barasganth_, 'year-knot'.

[11] _Gardani_.

[12] P. 36.

[13] The Mahomedans are very keen on breeding pigeons in large numbers; they make them fly all together, calling out, whistling, and waving with a cloth fastened to the end of a stick, running and making signals from the terraced roofs, with a view of encouraging the pigeons to attack the flock of some one else.... Every owner is overjoyed in seeing his own pigeons the most dexterous in misleading their opponents.'--Manucci, _Storia do Mogor_, i. 107 f.

[14] _Mugdar_.

[15] _Rohu_, a kind of carp, _Labeo rohita_.

[16] The use of the bow and arrow has now disappeared in northern India, and survives only among some of the jungle tribes.

[17] A curious relic of the custom of c.o.c.k-fighting at Lucknow survives in the picture by Zoffany of the famous match between the Nawab Asaf-ud-daula and Col. Mordaunt in 1786. The figures in the picture are portraits of the celebrities at the Court of Oudh, whose names are given by Smith, _Catalogue of British Mezzotint Portrait_, i. 273.

[18] _Bater, Coturnix communis_.

[19] Lucknow is now an important racing centre, and the Civil Service Cup for ponies has been won several times by native gentlemen.

[20] The feather or curl is one of the most important marks. If it faces towards the head, this is a horse to buy; if it points towards the tail, it is a 'female snake' (_sampan_), a bad blemish, as is a small star on the forehead. A curl at the bottom of the throat is very lucky, and cancels other blemishes. A piebald horse or one with five white points, a white face and four white stockings, is highly valued.

The European who understands the rules can often buy an 'unlucky'

horse at a bargain.

[21] _Dub, Cynodon Dactylon_.

[22] _Chadar._

[23] _Cicer arietinum_: the word comes from Port, _gro_, a grain.

[24] _Moth_, the aconite-leaved kidney-bean, _Phaseolus aconitifolius_.

[25] _Barsati_ from _barsat_, the rainy season; a pustular eruption breaking out on the head and fore parts of the body.

[26] The Native gentleman's charger, with his trained paces, his henna-stained crimson mane, tail, and fetlocks, is a picturesque sight now less common than it used to be.

[27] _Chita_, the hunting leopard. _Felis jubata_.

[28] _Mahawat_, originally meaning 'a high officer'.

[29] This specially applies to the Jain ascetics, who keep a brush to remove insects from their path, and cover their mouths with linen.

[30] A common piece of imitative magic: as the bird flies away it carries the disease with it. The practice of releasing prisoners when the King or a member of his family was sick, or as a thanksgiving on recovery, was common.--Sleeman, _Journey_, ii. 41.

[31] This is incorrect. Imprisonment for debt is allowed by Muhammadan Law.--Hughes, _Dictionary of Islam_, 82.

[32] This gives a too favourable account of the administration of justice in Oudh. 'A powerful landlord during the Nawabi could evict a tenant, or enhance his rent, or take away his wife from him, or cut his head off, with as much, or as little, likelihood of being called to account by Na zim or Chakladar for one act as for another'

(H.C. Irwin, _The Garden of India_, 258). Gen. Sleeman points out that Musalmans wore practically immune from the death penalty, particularly if they happened to kill a Sunni. A Hindu, consenting after conviction to become a Musalman, was also immune (_Journey Through Oudh_, i. 135). Executions used constantly to occur in Lucknow under Nasir-ud-din (W. Knighton, _Private Life of an Eastern King_, 104).

LETTER XVI

Remarks on the trades and professions of Hindoostaun.--The Bazaars.--Naunbye (Bazaar cook).--The Butcher, and other trades.--Shroffs (Money-changers).--Popular cries in Native cities.--The articles enumerated and the venders of them described.--The Cuppers.--Leechwomen.--Ear-cleaners.--Old silver.--Pickles.--Confectionery.--Toys.--Fans.--Vegetables and fruit.--Mangoes.--Melons.--Melon-cyder.--Fish.--Bird-catcher.--The Butcher-bird, the Coel, and Lollah.--Fireworks.--Parched corn.--Wonder-workers.--Snakes.--Anecdote of the Moonshie and the Snake-catcher.--The Cutler.--Sour curds.--Clotted cream.--b.u.t.ter.--Singular process of the Natives in making b.u.t.ter.--Ice.--How procured in India.--Ink.--All writing dedicated to G.o.d by the Mussulmauns.--The reverence for the name of G.o.d.--The Mayndhie and Sulmah.

The various trades of a Native city in Hindoostaun are almost generally carried on in the open air. The streets are narrow, and usually unpaved; the dukhauns[1] (shops) small, with the whole front open towards the street; a tattie[2] of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s forming an awning to shelter the shopkeeper and his goods from the weather. In the long lines of dukhauns the open fronts exhibit to the view the manufacturer, the artisan, the vender, in every variety of useful and ornamental articles for general use and consumption. In one may be seen the naunbye[3] (bazaar cook) basting keebaubs[3] over a charcoal fire on the ground with one hand, and beating off the flies with a bunch of date-leaves in the other; beside him may be seen a.s.sistant cooks kneading dough for sheermaul[3] or other bread, or superintending sundry kettles and cauldrons of currie, pillau, matunjun,[3]

&c., whilst others are equally active in preparing platters and trays, in order to forward the delicacies at the appointed hour to some great a.s.sembly.

The shop adjoining may probably be occupied by a butcher, his meat exposed for sale in little lean morsels carefully separated from every vestige of fat[4] or skin; the butcher's a.s.sistant is occupied in chopping up the coa.r.s.er pieces of lean meat into mince meat.[5] Such shops as these are actually in a state of siege by the flies; there is, however, no remedy for the butcher but patience; his customers always wash their meat before it is cooked, so he never fails to sell even with all these disadvantages.

But it is well for the venders of more delicate articles when neither of these fly-attracting emporiums are next door neighbours, or immediately opposite; yet if it even should be so, the merchant will bear with equanimity an evil he cannot control, and persuade his customers for silver shoes or other ornamental articles, that if they are not tarnished a fly spit or two cannot lessen their value.

The very next door to a working goldsmith may be occupied by a weaver of muslin; the first with his furnace and crucible, the latter with his loom, in constant employ. Then the snake-hookha manufacturer,[6] opposed to a mixer of tobacco, aiding each other's trade in their separate articles.

The makers and venders of punkahs of all sorts and sizes, children's toys, of earth, wood, or lakh; milk and cream shops; jewellers, mercers, druggists selling tea, with other medicinal herbs. The bunyah[7]

(corn-dealer) with large open baskets of sugar and flour, whose whiteness resembles each other so narrowly, that he is sometimes suspected of mixing the two articles by mistake, when certain sediments in sherbet indicate adulterated sugar.

It would take me too long were I to attempt enumerating all the varieties exposed in a Native street of shops. It may be presumed these people make no mystery of their several arts in manufacturing, by their choice of situation for carrying on their trades. The confectioner, for instance, prepares his dainties in despite of dust and flies, and pa.s.s by at what hour of the day you please, his stoves are hot, and the sugar simmering with ghee sends forth a savour to the air, inviting only to those who delight in the delicacies he prepares in countless varieties.

The most singular exhibitions in these cities are the several shroffs[8]

(money-changers, or bankers), dispersed in every public bazaar, or line of shops. These men, who are chiefly Hindoos, and whose credit may perhaps extend throughout the continent of Asia for any reasonable amount, take their station in this humble line of buildings, having on their right and left, piles of copper coins and cowries.[9] These shroffs are occupied the whole day in exchanging pice for rupees or rupees for pice, selling or buying gold mohurs, and examining rupees; and to all such demands upon him he is ent.i.tled to exact a regulated per centage, about half a pice in a rupee. Small as this sum may seem yet the profits produce a handsome remuneration for his day's attention, as many thousands of rupees may have pa.s.sed under his critical eye for examination, it being a common practice, both with shopkeepers and individuals, to send their rupees to the shroff for his inspection, always fearing imposition from the pa.s.sers of base coin. These shroffs transact remittances to any part of India by hoondies,[10] which are equivalent to our bills of exchange, and on which the usual demand is two and a half per cent at ninety days, if required for any distant station.

The European order is here completely reversed, for the shopkeeper sits whilst the purchasers are compelled to stand. The bazaar merchant is seated on the floor of his dukhaun, near enough to the open front to enable him to transact business with his customers, who, one and all, stand in the street to examine the goods and to be served; let the weather be bad or good, none are admitted within the threshold of the dukhaun. In most places the shops are small, and look crowded with the articles for sale, and those where manufactories are carried on have not s.p.a.ce to spare to their customers.

Very few gentlemen condescend to make their own purchases; they generally employ their confidential domestic to go to market for them; and with the ladies their women servants are deputed. In rich families it is an office of great trust, as they expend large sums and might be much imposed upon were their servants faithless. The servants always claim dustoor[11]

(custom) from the shopkeepers, of one pice for every rupee they lay out; and when the merchants are sent for to the houses with their goods, the princ.i.p.al servant in the family is sure to exact his dustoor from the merchant; and this is often produced only after a war of words between the crafty and the thrifty.

The diversity of cries from those who hawk about their goods and wares in streets and roadways, is a feature in the general economy of the Natives not to be overlooked in my brief description of their habits. The following list of daily announcements by the several sonorous claimants on the public attention, may not be unacceptable with their translated accompaniments.

'Seepie wallah deelie sukha'[12] (Moist or dry cuppers).--Moist and dry cupping is performed both by men and women; the latter are most in request.

They carry their instruments about with them, and traverse all parts of the city. The dry cupping is effected by a buffalo's horn and resorted to by patients suffering under rheumatic pains, and often in cases of fever, when to lose blood is either inconvenient on account of the moon's age, or not desirable by reason of the complaint or const.i.tution of the patient.

'Jonk, or keerah luggarny wallie'[13] (The woman with leeches).--Women with leeches attend to apply the required remedy, and are allowed to take away the leeches after they have done their office. These women by a particular pressure on the leech oblige it to disgorge the blood, when they immediately place it in fresh water; by this practice the leeches continue healthy, and may be brought to use again the following day if required.