zeenahnah apartments for
the whole establishment, male and female. Some of the aged and more
delicate people break their fast with the juice of spinach[5] only, others
choose a cup of boiling water to sip from. My aged friend, Meer Hadjee
Shaah, has acquired a taste for tea, by partaking of it so often with me;
and with this he has broken his fast for several years, as he says, with
the most comforting sensations to himself. I have seen some people take a
small quantity of salt in the first instance, preparatory to a draught of
any kind of liquid. Without some such prelude to a meal, after the day's
fast, the most serious consequences are to be apprehended.

After indulging freely in the simple liquids, and deriving great benefit
and comfort from a hookha, the appetite for food is generally stayed for
some time: many persons prefer a rest of two hours before they can
conveniently touch the food prepared for them, and even then, seldom eat
in the same proportion as they do at other meals. Many suffice themselves
with the one meal, and indulge in that very sparingly. The servants and
labouring classes, however, find a second meal urgently necessary, which
they are careful to take before the dawning day advances. In most families,
cold rice-milk is eaten at that early hour. Meer Hadjee Shaah, I have
before noticed, found tea to be the best antidote to extreme thirst, and
many are the times I have had the honour to present him with this beverage
at the third watch of the night, which he could enjoy without fear of the
first streaks of light on the horizon arriving before he had benefited by
this luxury.

The good things provided for dinner after the fast are (according to the
means of the party) of the best, and in all varieties; and from the
abundance prepared, a looker-on would pronounce a feast at hand; and so it
is, if to feed the hungry be a feast to the liberal-hearted bestower,
which with these people I have found to be a part and parcel of their
nature. They are instructed from their infancy to know all men as brothers
who are in any strait for food; and they are taught by the same code, that
for every gift of charity they dispense with a free good will, they shall
have the blessing and favour of their Creator abundantly in return. On the
present occasion, they cook choice viands to be distributed to the poor,
their fellow-labourers in the harvest; and in proportion to the number fed,
so are their expectations of bl