Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/126

 SHAIR ALT SYUD. (139)

HAIR ALI SYUD is a Mahomedan of the Syud sect, or descendants of the Prophet, and of the Soonnee behef He is an inhabitant of Gungeeree, in the Allyghur district, but of Persian origin. Gungeeree has been the residence of the family for upwards of four hundred years, ever since they left Timriz, in Persia. They are landowners, and employ themselves in the management of their property. Their diet is beef, mutton, fish, fowl, vegetables, and grain of every description; and their ancestors have lived to the age of seventy or seventy-five years.

The Syud is now sixty-four years of age, and about five feet three inches in height. His complexion is dark, and his eyes black; his hair and beard white. His features are peculiarly Mahomedan, of the centralasian type; and while they vouch for the purity of his descent, exemplify, in a strong manner, the obstinacy, sensuality, ignorance, and bigotry of his class. It is hardly possible, perhaps, to conceive features more essentially repulsive. On the classes to which Shair Ali belongs, time and change, with all the adjuncts of modern civilization, make little progress. Such as his ancestors were, he is, and desires his descendants to be, rigid Mahomedans, religious after their fashion, but attempting no change, and tolerating none.