Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOLARUM MUTINY. (Sept. 1853.) "It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself."--Acts xxv. 16. "Summum crede nefas, animam praeferre pudori, Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas." The story of the Bolarum Mutiny requires a few preliminary explanations. Most persons have heard of the two great hostile sects of Muhammadans, the Sunis and the Shiahs, who may be roughly compared to Protestants and Romanists. The Turks belong to the former, the Persians to the latter, whose religion chiefly consists in devotion to Ali, the son-in-law of their Prophet. The Muharram is the ten days' fast observed by Shiahs in remembrance of the death of Hasan and Husain, the sons of Ali and Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad. It is consequently a time of mourning and lamentation, when all devout Shiahs fast and deprive themselves of every customary luxury, spending every evening in reading and reciting dirges, beating their breasts, and bewailing with tears and groans the fate of the martyrs. On the tenth day of the fast, the Tazias, or models of the bier of Husain, are carried in procession, with allams, or standards--made in the fashion of an open hand, --to some plain representing the desert of Kerbella, where they are thrown into a tank. Of these allams the only one recognised by Northern Muhammadans is the Panja, or Hand of Husain; but many others are used in India, --one called the Nal Sahib (literally, Mr. Horseshoe), to which people, especially women, make vows. They are all made of metal or wood, but none of them are what we style flags. In the Dekkan the Muharram is so far perverted from its original purpose that it...
