The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-11-11
IN AN INDIAN MOSQUE.
ron, Barper's Na-azIDe

= AS4-- la X. '4st7---A4-C-
There is. in truth. good deal of life
and movement to be seen from the
crumbling steps of Vazir Khan: there
are two domed edifices which may have
once been toInbs or fountains. but
which now shelter various trades be-
meath the rude matched awnings pro-
iecting from their caves. Tailors and
tailors' apprentices stitch al day at
piles of dilapidate6 garments in their
shadow. and cobblers busy themselves
with heaps of dusty old shoes. and in
the middle OF the square their open-alr
restaurants, where great kettles OF
timed copper stand upon plat
forms elevated above the ground
and surrounded by rough benches;
sooty frying-pans sizzle on lit
tie clay furnaces. and the
keepers OF these restaurants sit en-
throned among the their coOking-uten-
sis and diligently fight the swarms of
flies with long handled brushes. In
the middle OF the day the benches are
crowded with customers. who have the
appearance of being peasants from the
outlying country, or Pathan peddlers;
and most of them being ANONYMOUSLY
swarthed in white, they look not lit
tie like the patrons of similar places IN
Morocco y great deal of horseshoe
ing and veterinary practice is carried
on in one corner, under great tree,
and there is always sound OF ham
mering and clashing of metal
from the smoky arches behind
Occasionally two men drag up
q struggling ram TO the corner steps
OF the mosque; having seated them
selves, they proceed TO divest him OF
his fleece, and after finishing their
work, confide their own heads to the
barber, who plies the shears under
straw awning close by. The great
open court of the mosque is seldom
thronged except at noon; a few school
boys con their books under the eye of
a master in one corner, and an occa-
sional beggar strolls in, and stretches
himself out to sleep on the pavement
among the pigeons. To those who
have been reared in other lands, in the
fear of the stern sacristan and
the autoc~atic suisse, there Is
something broadly democ: attic IN the
faith of Islam as it is practiced to-day.
While in most countries still under
Musulman dominion the unbeliever is
gigidly excluded from the mosque, the
humblest of the faithful may find there
refuge from the weather, sleep in the
protecting shadow of It's cloisters, and
battle in the water of the tank. With
out descending again into the square,
we may pass through the long corridor
and down the little steps at the end,
and we are in the gayest street of La
hore: in its display of carved and
weather beaten woodwork, of balco-
MES and jutting windows, each house
exhibiting the individual taste and
fancy of its designer, it is proba bly, I'M
equaled in any city of the east The dark
brick wall of the mosque, relieved by
brilliant panels of unglazed tiles, and
pierced by window here and there,
shadows for some distance the street,
which expands beyond into a little
square. Uttered in the afternoon with
the baskets of small hucksters. and the
SUNNI wall of the house which rises
across the way is a thing to study and
eniov. Its oriel-windows are delight
fully irregular in size and shape. and
the intervening spaces, from the caves
down to the ragged little shop roofs
and tattered awnings, once gaudily
painted with intermingled combipa-
tons of arabesque designs, gods and
animals. have been toned 20 a mellow
golden hue by the sun; dilapidated
cane mats hang at some of the win
dnwS. and the shadow Of great tree
ficker> on the wall in the afternoon.