in, at which the worshipers perform their ablutions, and at
the eastern side, facing toward Mecca, at the summit of a flight
of marble steps, is the mosque, 260 feet long and 120 feet wide.
The central archway is eighty feet high.

Over in one corner of the cloisters is a reliquary guarded by
a squad of fierce-looking priests, which contains some of the
most precious relics of the prophet in existence. They have a
hair from his mustache, which is red; one of his slippers, the
print of his foot in a stone, two copies of portions of the
Koran--one of them written by his son-in-law, Imam Husain, very
clear and well preserved, and the other by his grandson, Imam
Hasan. Both are very beautiful specimens of chirography, and would
have a high value for that reason alone, but obtained especial
sanctity because of the tradition that both were written at the
dictation of the Prophet himself, and are among the oldest copies
of the Koran in existence.

XVIII

THUGS, FAKIRS, AND NAUTCH DANCERS

The most interesting classes among the many kinds of priests,
monks and other people, who make religion a profession in India,
are the thugs, fakirs and nautch girls, who are supposed to devote
their lives and talents to the service of the gods. There are
several kinds of fakirs and other religious mendicants in India,
about five thousand in number, most of them being nomads, wandering
from city to city and temple to temple, dependent entirely upon
the charity of the faithful. They reward those who serve them
with various forms of blessings; give them advice concerning
all the affairs of life from the planting of their crops to the
training of their children. They claim supernatural powers to
confer good and invoke evil, and the curse of a fakir is the
last misfortune that an honest Hindu cares to bring upon himself,
for it means a failure of his harvests, the death of his cattle
by disease, sickness in his family and bad luck in everything
that he undertakes. Hence these holy men, who are familiars of the
gods, and are believed to spend most of their time communicating
with them in some mysterious way about the affairs of the world,
are able to command anything the people have to give, and nobody
would willingly cross their shadows or incur their displeasure.
The name is pronounced as if it were spelled "fah-keer."

These religious mendicants go almost naked, usually with nothing
but the smallest possible breech clout around th