Rozedhaars[4] (fasters), and it is generally prepared in the zeenahnah apartments for the whole establishment, male and female.  Some of the aged and more delicate people break their fast with the juice of spinach[5] only, others choose a cup of boiling water to sip from.  My aged friend, Meer Hadjee Shaah, has acquired a taste for tea, by partaking of it so often with me; and with this he has broken his fast for several years, as he says, with the most comforting sensations to himself.  I have seen some people take a small quantity of salt in the first instance, preparatory to a draught of any kind of liquid.  Without some such prelude to a meal, after the day’s fast, the most serious consequences are to be apprehended.

After indulging freely in the simple liquids, and deriving great benefit and comfort from a hookha, the appetite for food is generally stayed for some time:  many persons prefer a rest of two hours before they can conveniently touch the food prepared for them, and even then, seldom eat in the same proportion as they do at other meals.  Many suffice themselves with the one meal, and indulge in that very sparingly.  The servants and labouring classes, however, find a second meal urgently necessary, which they are careful to take before the dawning day advances.  In most families, cold rice-milk is eaten at that early hour.  Meer Hadjee Shaah, I have before noticed, found tea to be the best antidote to extreme thirst, and many are the times I have had the honour to present him with this beverage at the third watch of the night, which he could enjoy without fear of the first streaks of light on the horizon arriving before he had benefited by this luxury.

The good things provided for dinner after the fast are (according to the means of the party) of the best, and in all varieties; and from the abundance prepared, a looker-on would pronounce a feast at hand; and so it is, if to feed the hungry be a feast to the liberal-hearted bestower, which with these people I have found to be a part and parcel of their nature.  They are instructed from their infancy to know all men as brothers who are in any strait for food; and they are taught by the same code, that for every gift of charity they dispense with a free good will, they shall have the blessing and favour of their Creator abundantly in return.  On the present occasion, they cook choice viands to be distributed to the poor, their fellow-labourers in the harvest; and in proportion to the number fed, so are their expectations of blessings from the great Giver of all good, in whose service it is performed.  In my postscript you will find several anecdotes of the daughter of Mahumud on the subject of charity.

When any one is prevented fulfilling the fast of Rumzaun in his own person he is instructed to consider himself bound to provide food for opening the fast of a certain number of poor men who are Rozedhaars.  The general food of the peasantry and lower orders of the people—­bread and dhall[6]—­is deemed sufficient, if unable to afford anything better.