gentler gusts, bending their bodies and tossing their arms beneath the
stronger blasts, and casting themselves low with bowed heads and streaming
hair as the full force of the storm enwraps them. They are in very truth as
trees shaken by the wind. Nay more, the Mother herself once lived in human
form: she knows the pleasure, the comforts of the body and she is fain, by
entering the bodies of her female devotees, to renew the memories and
suggestions of her former life.

* * * * *

In conclusion one may briefly record what the Bhandaris thought of the
presence of a European at their sacred rite. Some feared him as one that
contemplated the imposition of a new tax; others viewed him askance as a
doctor from the Hospital despatched by higher authority to put an end to
the ceremony; and yet others,--the larger number insooth,--deemed that here
at last was a Saheb who had found physic a failure and had learned that the
Mother alone has power to allay grievous sickness.




XI.

SCENES IN BOMBAY.

A MUSULMAN HOLIDAY.


Nearly all the Mahomedan inhabitants of Bombay observe as a general picnic
day the last Wednesday of the month of 'Safar' which is known as 'Akhiri