The Saul-girrah is a day of annual rejoicing through the whole house of which the boy is a member; music, fireworks, toys, and whatever amusement suits his age and taste, are liberally granted to fill up the measure of his happiness; whilst his father and mother have each their assemblies to the fullest extent of their means.  Dinner is provided liberally for the guests, and the poor are not neglected, whose prayers and blessings are coveted by the parents for their offspring’s benefit; and they believe the blessings of the poor are certain mediations at the throne of mercy which cannot fail to produce benefits on the person in whose favour they are invoked.

The boy’s nurse is on all occasions of rejoicing the first person to be considered in the distribution of gifts; she is, indeed, only second in the estimation of the parents to the child she has reared and nourished; and with the child, she is of more consequence even than his natural parents.  The wet-nurse, I have said, is retained in the family to the end of her days, and whatever children she may have of her own, they are received into the family of her employer without reserve, either as servants or companions, and their interest in life regarded and watched over with the solicitude of relations, by the parents of the boy she has nursed.

At seven years old the boys are circumcised, as by their law directed.  The thanksgiving when the child is allowed to emerge from confinement, gives rise to another jubilee in the family.

At Lucknow we see, almost daily, processions on their way to the Durgah (before described),[12] where the father conveys the young Mussulmaun to return thanks and public acknowledgements at the sainted shrine.  The procession is planned on a grand scale, and all the male friends that can be collected attend in the cavalcade to do honour to so interesting an occasion.

When the prayer and thanksgiving have been duly offered in the boy’s name at the Durgah, money is distributed amongst the assembled poor; and on the way home, silver and copper coins are thrown to the multitude who crowd around the procession.  The scrambling and tumult on these occasions can only be relished by the Natives, who thus court popularity; but they rarely move in state without these scenes of confusion following in their train.  I have witnessed thousands of people following the King’s train, on his visiting the Durgah at Lucknow, when his Majesty and his Prime Minister scattered several thousands of rupees amongst the populace.  The noise was deafening, some calling blessings on the King, others quarrelling and struggling to force away the prize from the happy one who had caught, in the passing shower, a rupee or two in his drapery.  Some of the most cunning secure the prize in their mouths to save themselves from the plunderer; some are thrown down and trampled under foot; the sandy soil, however, renders their situation less alarming than such a calamity would be in London, but it is altogether a scene of confusion sufficient to terrify any one, except those who delight in their ancient customs without regarding consequences to individuals.