Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

THE PERSIA.N MIRACLE PLAY. 249
the day) from Bombay harbour to Back Bay lying
almost flush with the sea. The confused uproar of
its advance can be heard a mile away, and long before
the procession takes definite shape through the clouds
of dust and incense which move before it. It moves
headlong onward in an endless line of flashing swords,
blazoned suns, and waving banners, state umbrellas,
thrones, and canopies, and towering above all the
tdbfdSi framed of the most elegant shapes of Saracenic
architecture, glittering in silver and green and gold,
and rocking backwards and forwards in high air, like
great ships npon the rolling sea, with the rapid move-
ment of the hurrying crowd, beating drums, chanting
hymns, and shrieking, ' Yd 'Aly, Ay Hasan^ Ay Hoseyn,
Hoseijn Shah ! drowned, drowned, in blood, in blood
all three, fallen prostrate, dead ! Ya
Ay Hoseyn, Hoseyn Shah
!
'Aly, Ay Hasan^
' until the whole welkin
seems to ring and pulsate with the terrific wail.
Ever and anon a band of naked men, drunk with
opium or hemp, and painted like tigers or leopards,
makes a rush through the ranks of the procession,
leaping furiously, and brandishing their swords and
spears and clubs in the air. The route, however,
is strictly defined by a line of native policemen, and
before these representatives of British law and order,
the infuriated zealots will suddenly briug themselves
in full charge to a halt, wheel round, and retreat back
into the body of the procession, howling and shrieking
like a flight of baffled fiends.
" So, for a mile in length, the route advances,
against the rays of the now declining sun, until the
;