398 Roree in Kht/poor. [No. 113. 



Roree contains about forty mosques, where prayers are recited, and 

 more than double the number ruined and deserted. The great mosque 

 stands on an elevated platform in the N. E. quarter of the town, and 

 was built, according to a Persian inscription on the front, in the year 992 

 of the Hejira, or 265 years ago, by Futteh Khan Lieutenant of the 

 Emperor Akbur. It is a solid, heavy looking pile of red brick, covered 

 by three domes, and faced with porcelain tiles, and on the east or front 

 face, are a paved court and cloisters, where travellers formerly lodged, 

 but now in ruin. When I entered the court, a traveller was just arrived 

 from a long journey, and stretched at length upon his back on the pave- 

 ment, while a monjawur, or attendant of the mosque, trampled upon his 

 thighs to give relief, I was told, to his weary limbs. 



Near the mosque, in the Hindoo quarter of the town, the Mose Moo- 

 baruk, a hair of Mahomed's beard is preserved in a shrine covered 

 with ill painted arabesques. The Sindees say there are only 2| of these 

 precious hairs to be found in the world; the one at Roree, one at Dilheej 

 and the remaining half in Persia; the relic, it is believed, was brought 

 to Bukur four generations ago and is enshrined in amber, in a gold case 

 set with rubies and emeralds. The gold case is kept in a golden box> 

 shaped like the pen-holders used by Asiatics, and wrapped in silk, plain 

 and worked, with gold and silver flowers, and again enclosed in a wooden 

 box clamped with silver. The hair is exhibited to pilgrims, and said 

 to change colour like a camelion before their admiring eyes ; a num- 

 ber of Moojawar or custodians, are attached to the shrine, and four of the 

 principal families receive among them a daily allowance from Govern- 

 ment of If rupee. 



Roree has two great bazars, one filled exclusively by grain-seller's 

 stores, and the other with shops of cloth merchants, fruiterers, fish- 

 mongers, et cetera ; people of a trade reside together, and Hindoos 

 occupy quarters of the town distinct from Moosulmans. In the east 

 quarter are the remains of a mosque and serai of noble proportions, 

 which might be restored and made habitable at a , moderate outlay, and 

 would be a great benefit to the town, and convenience to travellers, who 

 still lodge under the broken arcades which surround the ample court. 



The town contains a number of shops, where turquoises are set and 

 polished, it is a favourite gem but the specimens shown me were small, 

 and of bad colour. People who cannot afford to purchase real stones 

 wear false ones set in rings, and women adorn their toes with blue ena- 

 melled buckles or clasps, and their nose with a very unbecoming gold 

 ornament, one half circular, and the other half moulded in form of a 



