and conditions of men thus
take their night's rest beneath the moon,--Rangaris, Kasais, bakers,
beggars, wanderers, and artisans,--the householder taking up a small
position on the flags near his house, the younger and unmarried men
wandering further afield to the nearest open space, but all lying with
their head towards the north for fear of the anger of the Kutb or Pole
star.

"Kibla muaf karta hai, par Kutb hargiz nahin!"
The Kibla forgives, but the Kutb never!

The sights and sounds vary somewhat at different seasons of the year.
During Ramazan, for example, the streets are lined with booths and stalls
for the sale of the rice-gruel or "Faludah" which is so grateful a posset
to the famishing Faithful, hurrying dinnerless to the nearest mosque. When
the evening prayer is over and the first meal has been taken, the
coffee-shops are filled with smokers, the verandahs with men playing
'chausar' or drafts, while the air is filled with the cries of iced
drink sellers and of beggars longing to break their fast also. Then
about 8 p.m., as the hour of the special Ramazan or "Tarawih" prayer
draws nigh, the mosque beadle, followed by a body of shrill-voiced
boys, makes his round of the streets, crying "Namaz tayar hai, cha-lo-o,"
and all the dwellers in the Musalman quarter hie them to the house
of prayer.

It is in the comparative quiet of the streets by night that one hears more
distinctly the sounds in the houses. Here rises the bright note of the
"shadi" or luck songs with which during the livelong night the women of the
house dispel the evil influences that gather around a birth, a circumcision
or a "bismillah" ceremony. There one catches the passionate outcry of the
husband vainly trying to pierce the deaf ear of death. For life in the city
has hardened the hearts of the Faithful, and has led them to forget the
kindly injunction of the Prophet, still observed in small towns or villages
up-country:--"Neither shall the merry songs of birth or of marriage deepen
the sorrow of a bereaved brother." The last sound that reaches you as you
turn homewards, is the appeal of the "Sawale" or begging Fakir for a
hundred rupees to help him on his pilgrimage. All night long he tramps
through the darkness, stopping every twenty or thirty paces to deliver his
sonorous prayer for help, nor ceases until the Muezzin voices the summons
to morning prayer. He is the last person you see, this strange and
portionless Darwesh of the S