12 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
acceptable to the Deity. It is said by the priests 
that in this place arose the custom, now common in 
India, of considering that he who bestows, not he 
who receives, charity is the party favoured. Thus 
in giving alms, they thank the person who receives 
their money, and the latter usually replies that 
they are welcome to his goodness in accepting 
their bounty. Their method of avenging them- 
selves upon an aggressor is truly absurd. They 
drive an ass to the threshold of their enemy's house, 
and there slay it ; by which act the house is polluted 
beyond remedy, and the family are obliged imme- 
diately to desert it. Should any of them remain 
under the roof until the blood be cooled, they cannot 
be purified except by a long and annoying series of 
ceremonies, and at much expense. 
The mosque of Shere Shah is perhaps the hand- 
somest building in Penkonda, and if erected by the 
chief whose name it bears, must be nearly three 
hundred years old. It is of a dark grey granite, 
with mouldings of a jet-black stone resembling horn- 
blend, wrought with all the nicety and skill of 
Oriental masonry. Behind this mosque, the hill 
rises precipitously to the height of five or six 
hundred feet ; presenting a rugged and apparently 
inaccessible face, partially overgrown with ragged 
bushes and jungul, from which sharp angles of rock 
project in all directions. In other places, again, 
there is not a blade of vegetation to be seen, and the 
