James Justinian Morier

“ My mother, too, complained of her want of power to break the hard rice, and did the same thing. A silence ensued, which made us all look with more attention than usual upon them, and it was only broken by a time-server of my mother, an old woman, who cried out, 'What child's play is this? Who has ever heard of a son treating his mother with this disrespect, and his old schoolmaster, too? ”

“ Having ordered the women in the andenûn to keep themselves veiled, because they would probably soon be visited by men, I requested the dervish to begin his operations.
He first looked at every one present with great earnestness, but more particularly fixed his basilisk eyes upon the âkhon, who evidently could not stand the scrutiny, but exclaimed 'Allah il Allah!' — there is but one God — stroked down his face and beard, and blew first over one shoulder and then over the other, by way of keeping off the evil spirit. ”

“ As fast as each person had ground his mouthful, he called to the dervish, and showed the contents of his mouth.
All had now proved their innocence excepting the âkhon and my mother. The former, whose face exhibited the picture of an affected cheerfulness with great nervous apprehension, kept mumbling his rice, and turning it over between his jaws, until he cried out in a querulous tone, 'Why do you give me this stuff to chew? I am old, and have no teeth:—it is impossible for me to reduce the grain' ”