Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/144

 covered with my thick capote, which, in the short distance of a few hundred yards, could hardly save me from being wet through.

November 25.—The annual fast of the Mahometans, called Ramazàn, had begun on the preceding day. It is customary for persons of rank to make presents of clothes and other things to their dependants, during the lunar month that the Ramazàn lasts, in order that they may appear dressed up in finery on the first day of the succeeding new moon, at the holyday of the Byràm, which succeeds it, as Easter-day does Lent among Christians. Lady Hester, who never was behindhand in beneficence, made it a rule to clothe all her Mahometan servants anew at this season, as she did all her Christian ones on New Year’s Day or at Easter. New capotes, pelisses, sherwals, shirts, shifts, turbans, gowns, &c., were always bought previous to the time; and, the best being given to the most deserving, the worst to the least so, with none at all to the lazy and worthless, some sort of activity was observable in their service previous to the expected time. But the objects they coveted once in their possession, they soon relapsed into their customary sloth.

Some of these articles of dress were lying on the floor, Lady Hester having had them brought for her to look at. She said to me, “You must take home