Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

THE PERSIAN MIRACLE PLAY. 247
banners, then musicians chanting sad airs, next the
sword-bearer, and then Hoseyn's horse, before whom
walks a servant bearing the symbol of the Sun, and
over whom the royal parasol is carried; Hoseyn's
coat-of-mail and turban, and bow and arrows, hang
from the saddle. Two censer-bearers usher on the
mulla who will recite the funeral oration. At last
come the sacred things—the funeral monuments, the
litter of the bride of Kasim, and the wedding gifts.
Servants mounted on elephants distribute alms on
the road, and muskets are discharged all the way to
the burial-ground. A vast multitude surrounds the
procession, clad in mourning, barefoot, with dust on
the head, and raising continually the cry of Hasan
and Hoseyn. When they are come to the place, they
bury the model of the Tombs with its fruits and its
flowers, and the perfumes and the presents, in the
vault prepared for their reception, and take themselves
to their homes. And Moharram is over.
Sir George Birdwood gives a vivid description of
the ceremonies of the last day at Bombay, where the
tombs are carried, not to a sepulchre, but to the sea,
into which indeed the very Euphrates by whose bank
Hoseyn died pours its waters. " On the 10th of
Moharram every house in which a tdhiU is kept, or in
which one is put up for the occasion, sends forth its
cavalcade, or company, to join the general funeral
procession, which in the native Mohammadan states
sometimes assumes the character of a solemn military
pomp. First go the musicians, with pipes and cymbals,
high horns, and deafening drums, followed by the