troupe, dressed in long yellow shirts and loose yellow turbans, represent
Swami Narayan priests and pass in silence before the glittering simulacrum
of the Martyr's tomb.

The most curious feature of the Mohurrum celebration is the roystering and
brawling of the _Tolis_ or street-bands which takes places for two or
three nights after the fifth day of the month. Each street has its own band
ready to parade the various quarters of the city and fight with the bands
of rival streets. If the rivalry is good-humoured, little harm accrues; but
if, as is sometimes the case, feelings of real resentment are cherished,
heads are apt to be broken and the leaders find themselves consigned to the
care of the Police. It is difficult to see the connection between these
brawling street-companies and the lamentation for Hasan and Husein; but the
rivalry of the _mohollas_ recalls the free-fighting which used once to
take place between the various quarters of Gujarat and Kathiawar towns
during the Holi festival, while the beating, shouting and general
pandemonium evoked by the _Tolis_ are probably akin to the
extravagance once practised at the beating of the bounds in England and
Scotland and are primarily designed to scare away evil-spirits from the
various quarters of the city. The _Tolis_ are indeed a relic of pure
Hinduism--of aboriginal spirit-belief, and have in the course of centuries
been gradually associated with the great Mahomedan Festival of Tears.
Originally they can have had no connection with the Mohurrum and are in
essence as much divorced from the lamentation over the slaughter at Karbala
as are the mummers, the Nal Sahebs and the Lords of the conchshell (Sain
Kowra) of the modern celebration from the true Mahomedan who wanders back
from the sea-shore uttering the cry of grief--

"Albida, re albida, Ya Huseini albida."
"Farewell, farewell, ah, my Husein, farewell!"