The morning we arrived in Agra we swallowed a hasty breakfast and hurried off to the great mosque to witness the ceremonies of what might be termed the Mohammedan Easter, although the anniversary has an entirely different significance.  The month of Ramadan is spent by the faithful followers of the Prophet in a long fast, and the night before it is broken, called Lailatul-Kadr, or “night of power,” is celebrated in rejoicing, because it is the night on which the Koran is supposed to have come down from heaven.  In the morning following, which is as much a day of rejoicing as our Christmas, the men of Islam gather at the mosques and engage in a service of thanksgiving to Allah for the blessings they and their families have enjoyed during the year past, and pray for a repetition of the same mercies for the year to come.  This festival is called the “Idu I-Fitr,” and we were fortunate enough to witness one of the most impressive spectacles I have ever seen.  Women never appear, but the entire male population, with their children assembled at the great park which surrounds the mosque, clad in festival attire, each bringing a prayer rug to spread upon the ground.  About ten thousand persons of all ages and all classes came on foot and in all sorts of vehicles, with joyous voices and congratulations to each other that seemed hearty enough to include the whole world.  Taking advantage of their good humor and the thankful spirits hundreds of beggars were squatting along the roadside and appealing to every passerby in pitiful tones.  And nearly everyone responded.  Some people brought bags of rice, beans and wheat; others brought cakes and bread, but the greater number invested in little sea shells which are used in the interior of India as currency, and one hundred of them are worth a penny.

Rich people filled their pockets with these shells and scattered them by handsful among the crowd, and the shrieking beggars scrambled for them on the ground.  There were long lines of food peddlers, with portable stoves, and tables upon which were spread morsels which the natives of India considered delicacies, but they were not very tempting to us.  The food peddlers drove a profitable trade because almost every person present had been fasting for a lunar month and had a sharp appetite to satisfy.  After the services the rich and the poor ate together, masters and servants, because Mohammed knew no caste, and it was an interesting sight to see the democratic spirit of the worshipers, for the rich and the poor, the master and the servant, knelt down side by side upon the same rug or strip of matting and bowed their heads to the ground in homage of the God that made them all.  Families came together in carriages, bullock carts, on the backs of camels, horses, mules, donkeys, all the male members of the household from the baby to the grandfather, and were attended by all men servants of the family or the farm.  They washed together at the basins where the fountains were spouting more joyously than