A BOMBAY MOSQUE.


Who does not know the Mahomedan quarters of the city of Bombay, with their
serried ranks of many-storeyed mansions extending as far as eye can reach?

Dark and forbidding seem many of these houses; and to few is it given to
know the secrets they enshrine. But these square battalions of brick and
plaster are not wholly continuous. For here and there the ranks are broken
by the plain guard-wall and deep-eaved porch, or by the glistening domes
and balcony-girt minarets of a mosque: and at such points one may, if one
so wish, see more of the people who dwell in the silent houses than one
could hope to see during the course of a month's peregrinations up and down
the streets devoted to the followers of the Prophet.

* * * * *

Stand with me at sundown opposite the gateway of the mosque and watch the
stream of worshippers flowing in through the portals of the house of
prayer. Here are the rich purse-proud merchants of Persia, clad in their
long black coats; there the full-bearded Maulavis. Behind them come smart
sepoys hailing from Northern India, golden-turbaned, shrewd-eyed Memon
traders and ruddy-complexioned close-bearded Jats from Multan. Nor is our
friend the dark Sidi wanting to the throng: and he is followed by the Arab
with his well-known head-gear, by the handsome Afghan, and by the broad-
shouldered native of Bokhara in his heavy robes. Mark too the hurried steps
of the brocade-worker from Surat, and note the contrast of colour as the
grimy fitter or black-smith passes through the porch side by side with the
spotlessly-clad Konkani Musulman, whose high features and olive skin betray
his Indo-Arab origin. Rich and poor, clean and unclean, all pass in to