The audience have been sobbing the whole time, but now there is a perfect spasm of grief. An angel then comes, and offers to slay Hossein's enemies; but he refuses, and the angel throws dust over his head. Then he draws his scimitar. The villain Shimr appears, and they ride off. The battle, the treachery, want of water, and the slaying, are left to the imagination; and we next see the procession of the Imám's captive children, widow, and sister, and the headless corpse upon a bier. The procession of last night follows again, shrieking, "Ya Ali! Ya Hossein!" with beating of breasts. The _tabuts_ are set up in every nook and corner, and are fanciful representations of the tombs of Hassan and Hossein--gay, glittering gimcracks and tinsel. They are carried through the streets by men and boys as merry as grigs, dancing and shouting, to fling them into the sea. The explanation is that the Shí'ahs mourn for Hossein with despair, but the Sunnis consider him not a martyr to be mourned for, and turn the occasion into ridicule; and these _tabut_ processions are conducted by the Sunnis as a caricature, which sometimes ends in a serious fight. We also came in for a regatta, and we received great hospitality on board the Squadron. [Sidenote: _Richard's old Persian Moonshee_.] During this journey we saw a great deal of Mirza Ali Akbar, who was Richard's old _moonshee_ when he was a boy. We had a delightful Persian breakfast with him, of fruit, vegetables, every kind of sweets, and rice highly seasoned, rice with caraway seeds, _pilao_ with saffron savoury and aromatic, prawn curry with plain rice, sweet rice with rose-water, spices, and sweet paste from Muscat. He had been very much wronged in some matter, and Richard was helping and instructing him how to put his case clearly before the public, he being quite an innocent man, of whatever charge was brought against him, though I forget what it was; but he died--like many others--before he was righted--as justice was slow. When he called upon Richard, his card was brought in, in large letters looking like the visiting-card of some middle-class respectable Englishman, with "Mirza _Ally_ Akbar" upon it. "Hullo, Mirza," Richard said, after they had salaamed. "Are you any relation to Ally Sloper?" The Mirza laughed--that is, as nearly as an Eastern does laugh--and said, "No! but the English always call me _Ally_ Akbar, so I found it was the shortest way to call myself so." It is surprising how often we have gone to places, and found the natives had changed their names to whatever the English chose to call them; for instance, a Señor Machado had become a Mr. Much-harder.