192 Journal of a voyage from [March, 



the breadth of the river from the hank of this nala to the opposite 

 high bank must be more than four miles. 



We remained at Pdkpatan till the 26th, making arrangements for 

 reducing to order the predatory tribes of that neighborhood. 



On the 23rd we visited the shrine of Hazrat Shekh Farid Shakar- 

 ganj* in the town of Pdkpatan. We had to ascend more than forty 

 feet to the top of the mound on which the town is built. The ground 

 sounded hollow to our horses' hoofs as we threaded through numerous 

 narrow streets and alleys, many of which were lined with miserable 

 objects of charity, among whom here and there might be seen females 

 enveloped in the burkhd, pretended descendants of the Prophet, who 

 importuned for alms with a perseverance which we found it difficult 

 to resist. After descending again by a flight of steps to a level with 

 the surrounding country, we were conducted into a small square paved 

 court surrounded by the lofty brick walls of the adjacent houses. In 

 the centre of this stood the maqbard, a plain insignificant building, 

 having one small apartment, in which was the grave of the saint 

 covered with faded drapery. There were two doors to this apartment, 

 one to the north and one to the east. That to the east, called the 

 " door of Paradise," is never opened but on the fifth day of the 

 sacred Moharam, when numbers of pilgrims, both Hindus and Mus- 

 salmans, come to visit the shrine, and all who pass through this door- 

 way are considered saved from the fines of perdition. The door-way 

 is about two feet wide, and cannot be passed without stooping, and the 

 apartment itself is not capable of containing thirty people crowded 

 together : yet such is the care which the saint takes of his votaries 

 on these occasions, that no accident or loss of life has ever been known 

 to occur. A superlative heaven is allotted to those who are first to 

 enter the tomb on the day mentioned. The rush for precedence may, 

 therefore, be better imagined than described. The crowd of pilgrims 

 is said to be immense, and as they egress from the sacred door-way, 

 after having rubbed their foreheads on the foot of the saint's grave, 

 the air resounds with their shouts of Farid ! Farid ! Several relics 

 were shewn to us, among which the most curious was, a round flat 

 piece of wood of the size and shape of an Indian's bread or chapdti. 

 In the long fasts which the saint imposed on himself, he is said to 

 have solaced his hunger by gnawing this hard substance. 



There is a couplet very common throughout the Panjdb which has 

 reference to this story- 



The ancestors of Shekh Farid-u'-din first came to Multan in the 



* See some account of the same saint by Munshi Mohun'La'l in the last 

 .volume. — Ed, 



