On the birth of a child, if it happens to be a male, all the female attendants utter loud shouts of joy. The mother is kept on very simple diet, and obliged to drink water made hot by a heated horseshoe being plunged into it; this has the power of guarding against internal devils, who are supposed to be very active on such occasions, lying in wait for mother and child. The moolah is then ushered into the chamber: he takes the child in his arms and repeats in his right ear the Mohammedan summons to prayer, and in his left the creed. A fakeer is then introduced: he dips his finger in some honey and puts it into the child's mouth before it has tasted any of its mother's milk, which is to ensure it all the luxuries of life. After these have retired an astrologer casts the horoscope of the child, and there and then predicts its future, which, good or bad, is accepted as fate and without a murmur. Meanwhile, the nearest relatives assemble around the father and dress his hair with blades of grass--a Hindoo observance, grass typifying the fragility of human life and affections--and he in turn makes them presents according to his circumstances. The naming of the child takes place on the eighth day after birth. If a son, it is named after the father's clan or tribe; if a daughter, after the mother's side of the family. The choice of the child's name depends on the day of its birth and the appearance of the planet under whose influence it is supposed to be born, as much as on the parentage. The mother remains apart from the household till the fortieth day after childbirth; then she is bathed, fumigated, and purified, and so prepared to enter the mosque, where she offers up thanks for her safe deliverance from the perils of childbirth, and either reads or has portions of the Koran read to her, offering a sacrifice of two goats for a son and one for a daughter. On the same day, in the afternoon, another ceremony is held--that of shaving the hair of the child. A priest and a barber attend to this rite; prayers are offered, water is sprinkled over the head of the child, and the hair shaved off is carried in procession to the water's edge, and then launched on a little raft to float down the river. By this ceremony all evil is guarded from the infancy and childhood of Mohammedan children. Very often sacred locks are left on the top of the heads of Mohammedan children, like those of the Brahmans, and these locks are consecrated to some saint or noble ancestor.