When any one dies without having duly observed the fast, pious relatives engage some devout person to perform a month’s fast, which they believe will be accepted for the neglectful person.  Many devout Mussulmauns extend the fast from thirty to full forty days, by the example of Mahumud and his family; and it is no unusual thing to meet with others who, in addition to this month, fast every Thursday through the year; some very rigid persons even fast the month preceding and the following month, as well as the month of Rumzaun.

Some very young people (children we should call them in happy England) are permitted to try their fasting powers, perhaps for a day or two during the month of Rumzaun.  The first fast of the noviciate is an event of no small moment to the mother, and gives rise to a little festival in the zeenahnah; the females of the family use every sort of encouragement to induce the young zealot to persevere in the trial when once commenced, and many are the preparations for the opening last with due eclat in their circle—­sending trays of the young person’s good things to intimate friends, in remembrance of the interesting event; and generally with a parade of servants and music, when the child (I must have it so) belongs to the nobility, or persons of consequence, who at the same time distribute money and food to the poor.

These first fasts of the young must be severe trials, particularly in the hot season.  I have heard, it is no uncommon thing for the young sufferers to sink under the fatigue, rather than break the fast they have had courage to commence.  The consolation to the parents in such a case would be, that their child was the willing sacrifice, and had died ’in the road of God’, as all deaths occurring under performances of a known duty are termed.

Within my recollection a distressing calamity of this nature occurred at Lucknow, in a very respectable family.  I did not know the party personally, but it was the topic in all the houses I visited at that period.  I made a memorandum of the circumstance at the time, from which the following is copied: 

’Two children, a son and daughter of respectable parents, the eldest thirteen and the youngest eleven years of age, were permitted to prove their faith by the fast, on one of the days of Rumzaun; the parents, anxious to honour their fidelity, expended a considerable sum of money in the preparations for celebrating the event amongst their circle of friends.  Every delicacy was provided for opening their fast, and all sorts of dainties prepared to suit the Epicurean palates of the Asiatics, who when receiving the trays at night would know that this was the testimony of the children’s perseverance in that duty they all hold sacred.