Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/307

 CHAPTER XXI.

LIFE IN THE ZENĀNA.

Devotees at the Great Fair—Wild Ducks—Quail shooting—Price of English Hounds—Col. Gardner—Life in the Zenāna—The Grass Cutter—Dūb Grass—The Gram-grinder—The Charkhī—Jack fruit—Duty of a Sā'īs—Arrangement of a Turban—The young Princes of Lucnow—Archery—Indian Bows and Arrows—Whistling Arrows—The Bows, Arrows, and War Hatchet of the Coles—The Pellet Bow—Witchcraft practised with a charmed Bow.

1832. Feb. 2nd.—I went to the Burā Mela, the great annual fair on the sands of the Ganges, and purchased bows and arrows, some curious Indian ornaments, and a few fine pearls. On the sands were a number of devotees, of whom the most holy person had made a vow, that for fourteen years he would spend every night up to his neck in the Ganges; nine years he has kept his vow: at sunset he enters the river, is taken out at sunrise, rubbed into warmth, and placed by a fire; he was sitting, when I saw him, by a great log of burning wood; is apparently about thirty years of age, very fat and jovial, and does not appear to suffer in the slightest degree from his penance. Another religious mendicant lies all day on his back on the ground, his face encrusted with the mud of the Ganges. The Hindoos throw flowers over them, and feed them, paying the holy men divine honours.

The fair this year is thinly attended, the people not amounting to a lākh, in consequence of the very heavy rain which fell throughout December last, and prevented many of those from attending who had to come from a very great distance.

25th.—I went with my husband into tents near Alumchund, for the sake of shooting; and used to accompany him on an