of the early Fakir or Mahomedan beggar, whose object is not so much to wake
the Faithful and bid them remember "the prayer that is better than sleep"
as to be the earliest bird to catch the mouthful of Moslem charity. Watch
him as he awakens the echoes of the quarter by repeating in the most
melancholy tones Ali's famous gift of his sons to the beggars of the Hegira
or some other great tradition of the generosity of Ali, set to verse for
the special behoof of his brotherhood by some needy poetaster like the
famous Nazir of Agra. He is followed by another who chants in deep bass
tones a legend explanatory of the virtues of the great saint of Baghdad.
But Ali is the favourite of the beggar-tribe, because forsooth the beggar
runs no risk in singing his praises. If one glorify the other three
Khalifas in a Sunni quarter, it is well with one, but not so in an area
devoted to the Shia population: and so the beggar chooses Ali's name
as a convenient and fitting means of opening the purse-strings of
both the great Musulman sects.

As the day dawns, sturdy Hyderabad chorus-singers pass along the streets
chanting the "prayers for the Prophet" in voices that awaken the denizens
of the dark garrets and hidden courts of the teeming chals. And after them
come the beggars of that class which is the peculiar product of Mahomedan
life in Bombay. As the majority of the middle-class Musulmans and all the
poorer class live in chals or "malas," each family occupying one or at most
two rooms in a building, the passages, corridors and staircases of these
human warrens become the chosen paths of those astute mendicants who
disdain not, when chance offers, to turn their hand to a little quiet
thieving. Even as they fare upon their rounds, you catch the welcome call
of the vendor of "jaleibi malpurwa," who sells wheat-cakes fried rarely in
_ghi_ and generally in oil, and the "jaleibi" a sort of macaroni fried
likewise in oil. These crisp cakes are a favourite breakfast-dish of the
early-rising factory-operative, who finds himself thus saved the drudgery