The tazeah had a splendidly gilded dome, and in the front of it was the figure of a strange creature, with the body of a camel, and a long tapering neck, terminating with a female face shaded by jet black ringlets; round the neck of this creature, which I take it was intended to represent Borak, on which Mahomed made his nocturnal journey to heaven, were strings of gold coins. All this magnificence was supplied at the expense, I was told, of a devout old begum, the left-handed wife of an invalid general at Chunar, with whom, as will appear, I became subsequently acquainted. On the seventh night of the _Mohurrum_, it is usual to celebrate the marriage of Hussain’s daughter (nothing being perfect in this world without a little love) with her cousin, a gallant partisan of the house of Ali; Dhull Dhull too, the faithful steed of Hussain, his housings stuck full of arrows, forms a part of the pageant, and serves to create a still more lively image of the touching event which it is intended to commemorate. The Mahomedans, when worked up to a high state of religious excitement and frenzy, on these occasions, are dangerous subjects to deal with; very little would then induce them to try the temper of their blades on the carcases of any description of infidel, Hindoo or Christian. The relator was once at Allahabad when the great Hindoo festival of the _Hoolee_, a sort of Saturnalia, and the Mahomedan _Mohurrum_ unluckily fell together; and was present with the judge, Mr. Chalmers, when a deputation from each of the religions waited upon him in connection with the subject of the apprehended bloodshed and disturbance, in case the processions of the two should meet. The requests and the reasonings of the parties were highly characteristic of the genius of their respective religions. The Hindoos urged, mildly, that as their ancestors had possessed the country from time immemorial, and long before the Mahomedans came into it, they did not see why they should postpone the celebration of their religious rites, because the former chose to take offence at them; they disclaimed the slightest wish to insult or offend the Faithful, but contended for their right to parade the city in procession, with music, &c., as of old. The Mahomedan moollahs, on their part, urged that, as the Hindoos were kaffers and idolaters, it must be (and they put the case very feelingly to Mr. Chalmers) exceedingly galling to them if they were allowed to parade their music and processions near their mosques and tazeahs: “Betwixt the wind and their nobility.” The judge endeavoured to impress upon these last reasoners that the poor Hindoos had virtually as good a right as they had to perform their religious rites in their common city; and as for their being unbelievers, they could with equal reason return the compliment.