especting the manners and customs of _Ingilistan_,
or England. The choice of a ship, and the selection of sea-stock, were
of course matters of grave consideration, and the more so from the
peculiar unfitness of the habits and religious scruples of an Indian
Moslem for the privations unavoidable at sea; but a passage was at
last taken for the khan and his two servants on board the Edinburgh of
1400 tons, and it being agreed that he should find his own provisions,
to obviate all mistakes on the score of forbidden food, and the
captain promising moreover that his comforts should be carefully
attended to, this weighty negotiation was at length concluded. It is
due to the khan to say, that whether from being better equipped, or
from being endued with more philosophy and forbearance than his
compatriot, Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, (to whom we have above referred,) he
seems to have reconciled himself to the hardships of the _kala-pani_,
or ocean, with an exceedingly good grace; and we find none of the
complaints which fill the pages of the Mirza against the impurity of
his food, the impossibility of performing his ablutions in appointed
time and manner, and sundry other abominations by which he was so
grievously afflicted, that at a time of danger to the vessel, "though
many of the passengers were much alarmed, I, for my own part, was so
weary of life that I was perfectly indifferent to my fate." Abu-Talib,
however, sailed in an ill-regulated Danish ship; and in summing up the
horrors of the sea, he strongly recommends his countrymen, if
compelled to brave its miseries, to embark in none but an English
vessel.

During the last days of the khan's sojourn in Calcutta, he witnessed
the splendid celebration of the rites of the Mohurrum, when the
slaughter of the brother Imams, Hassan and Hussein, the martyred
grandsons of the Prophet, is lamented by all sects of the faithful,
but more especially by the _Rafedhis_ or Sheahs, the followers of Ali,
"of whom there are many in Calcutta, though they are less numerous
than the orthodox sect or Sunnis, from whom they are distinguished, at
this season, by wearing black as mourning. At the _Baitak-Khana_ (a
quarter of Calcutta) we witnessed the splendid procession of the
_Taziya_,[14] with the banners and flags flying, and the wailers
beating their breasts."... "It is the custom here, at this season, for
all the natch-girls (dancers) to sit in the streets of the
Chandnibazar, under canopies deco