'
[132] "At the great festival of fire, called the Sheb Seze, they used to
set fire to large bunches of dry combustibles, fastened round wild beasts
and birds, which being then let loose, the air and earth appeared one
great illumination; and as these terrified creatures naturally fled to the
woods for shelter, it is easy to conceive the conflagrations they
produced."--_Richardson's Dissertation_.
[133] "The righteous shall be given to drink of pure wine, sealed: the
seal whereof shall be musk."--_Koran_, chap lxxxiii.
[134] The Afghans believe each of the numerous solitudes and deserts of
their country to be inhabited by a lonely demon, whom they call The
Ghoolee Beeabau, or Spirit of the Waste. They often illustrate the
wildness of any sequestered tribe, by saying they are wild as the Demon of
the Waste."--_Elphinstone's Caubul_.
[135] "They have all a great reverence for burial-grounds, which they
sometimes call by the poetical name of Cities of the Silent, and which
they people with the ghosts of the departed, who sit each at the head of
his own grave, invisible to mortal eyes."--_Elphinstone_.
[136] The celebrity of Mazagong is owing to its mangoes, which are
certainly the best I ever tasted. The parent-tree, from which all those of
this species have been grafted, is honored during the fruit-season by a
guard of sepoys; and, in the reign of Shah Jehan, couriers ware stationed
between Delhi and the Mahratta coast, to secure an abundant and fresh
supply of mangoes for the royal table.
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