The Nou-Roze teems with friendly tokens between the two families of a bride and bridegroom elect, whose interchange of presents are also strictly observed.  The children receive gifts from their elders; their nurses reap a harvest from the day; the tutor writes an ode in praise of his pupil, and receives gifts from the child’s parents; the servants and slaves are regaled with dainties and with presents from the superiors of the establishment; the poor are remembered with clothes, money and food; the ladies make and receive visits; and the domenie attend to play and sing in the zeenahnah.  In short, the whole day is passed in cheerful amusements, suited to the retirement of a zeenahnah and the habits of the people.

* * * * *

There is a festival observed at Lucknow called Bussund[27] (spring-colour).  I should remark here, that almost all the trees of India have perpetual foliage; as the season approaches for the new leaves to sprout, the young buds force off the old leaves; and when the trees are thus clothed in their first delicate foliage, there is a yellow tinge in the colour which is denominated Bussund (Spring).  A day is appointed to be kept under this title, and then every one wears the Bussund colour:  no one would be admitted at Court without this badge of the day.  The elephants, horses and camels of the King, or of his nobles, are all ornamented with the same colour on their trappings.

The King holds a Court, gives a public breakfast, and exhibits sports with ferocious animals.  The amusements of this day are chiefly confined to the Court:  I have not observed much notice taken of it in private life.

The last month of the periodical rains is called Sahbaund.[28] There is a custom observed by the Mussulmaun population, the origin of which has never been clearly explained to me; some say it is in remembrance of the Prophet Elisha or Elijah, and commences the first Friday of Sahbaund, and is followed up every succeeding Friday through this concluding month of the rainy season.[29]

This ceremony may have had its origin with devout persons willing to honour or to invoke the Prophet Elijah, who, as our Scripture informs us, ’prayed, and the clouds gave no rain for the space of three years; and again he prayed and the heavens were opened to his prayer’.  Or in that of Elisha parting the waters with the mantle of Elijah, after succeeding him in the Prophetic office, 2 Kings ii. 14; or a still more probable event, calculated to excite the pious to some such annual notice as is observed with these people, in the same chapter, the twentieth and following verses, where we find it said of Elisha, ’And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein.  And they brought it to him.  And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more dearth or barren land.  So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.’