48 THE MAHOMED AXS OF OUDE. 



plain, producing grain and cotton in j)lenty — the 

 latter crop liaving just l)een gathered. We passed 

 endless sti-ings of two-wheeled oxen wagons, creaking 

 under tlieir heavy load, but their progress also was 

 so slow that the only moving thing a})peared to be 

 numerous flights of wild geese, even they scarcely 

 stirring the air. 



Lucknow, one of the oldest cities in India, has a 

 right to boast of its picturesque bazaars, although 

 often so narrow as to make it difficult to escape the 

 sharp teeth of a camel as he shufiles along under a 

 pile of vegetables or other equally necessary articles 

 of consumption. Elephants can only pass through 

 the broader streets, of which there is one at least, 

 the Chinka, or Chinese bazaar, with a handsome gate- 

 way at each end. The natives here are very clever 

 at moulding those pretty figures in clay representing 

 the different trades and occupations of the lower 

 orders. 



The State religion of Oude is Mahomedan, its 

 rulers having extirpated the Brahmans in the be- 

 ginning of the fourteenth century, and the sect is 

 that of the Shiites or Shiahs, whose strength lies 

 in Persia, whilst the inhabitants of Turkey and her 

 dependencies are Sonnites, the former being the 

 partisans of Ali and his wife Fatima, Mahomed's 



