The last time I saw this ceremony it included picturesque features new to me; and, by way of marking a dramatic contrast between century and century, an aeroplane suddenly whirred across the square of sky visible from the Valideh court. But I shall always remember the first of the processions that I saw. It was in the same paved courtyard of Valideh Han, surrounded by half-ruined cloisters. The central mosque, the temporary shed in one corner, the sparse trees, the silently waiting spectators, made so many vague shapes in the February dusk; and snow was falling. A strange clamour of pipes and drums and shouting began to make itself heard in the distance. Suddenly the archway giving entrance to the _han_ lighted up with a smoky glare, and the procession surged slowly into the court. It was led by men carrying flaming cressets of iron basketwork and three enigmatic steel emblems on long staves. The central one was a sort of sword-blade above a spindle-shaped fretting of Arabic letters, while the other two were tridents springing from a similar base; and from all three floated streamers of crape. Next came two files of standard-bearers, dressed in black, with black caps on their heads. The flags they bore were black or dark-coloured, triangular in shape, with the names of the _Imams_ and other holy inscriptions embroidered on them in silver. On top of some of the staves was an open hand of brass. I was told that it commemorated the mutilation of Hüsseïn. Behind the standard-bearers marched more men in black, chanting in a rhythm of six beats and striking their bare breasts on the fifth. Even a foreigner could distinguish the frequent names of Ali and Hüsseïn. Others held in both hands a chain at the end of which was a bunch of smaller chains. With this, first over one shoulder and then over the other, they beat their backs. The thud kept time with the chanting, and vigorously enough to leave visible, sometimes sickening signs, under the torn black of the single garment they wore. Two white horses followed. The first, with rich saddle-cloth and head-stall, carried a little boy on his back. On the saddle of the second, caparisoned in blood-streaked white, were two doves. Then came a band of musicians, singing, playing pipes, beating drums, and clashing cymbals. And last of all, slowly advancing sidewise in two long lines, appeared a gruesome company of men in white, who chanted hoarsely and slashed their shaven heads with bloody swords. The blood-stained figures in white, the black flagellants, the symbolic horses, the mourning banners, the points of steel answering the flare of the torches, made strange matter indeed for the imagination, moving with desperate music through that veil of driving snow. [Illustration: Valideh Han]