ventures. Fatima, the orphan daughter of an Arab chief of Yemen, when in her sixteenth year, in order to escape ill treatment from some of the relations under whose protection she had been left, sought refuge among other kinsfolk in her neighbourhood. In her passage to the new roof she was intercepted by some Bedouin robbers, and carried to their strong hold; where, during her first night's abode with them, she overheard a conversation, by which she learned that in order to prevent detection, they had resolved to put her to death. The intercession of a female among the tribe saved her life, and she was carried a day's journey on a swift camel, and sold to a slave-merchant at Mocha. One of the singular privileges of the anomalous state of slavery in Arabia entitles the captive to a veto on her sale; and Fatima, who was nobly born, resolved to exercise her right to the utmost, and not permit herself to be transferred unless to a proprietor whom she fully approved. A fisherman accordingly, who tendered a large price, and who would have married her, was scornfully refused; and many subsequent chapmen encountered the same fate. It happened that Meer Hadjee Shah, who had promised to carry home a slave for his wife, was passing through Mocha on his return home. Fatima was satisfied by his appearance at the first glance, and was yet more pleased when she learned that he was a Syaad of India, and although not rich, a descendant of the Emaums. The merchant also was heartily glad to dispose of so difficult a piece of goods at a very moderate profit, and the bargain therefore was easily completed. sooner, however, had Meer Hadjee Shah learned the history of his new acquisition, than he informed Fatima that she was free, and that he would appropriate half the sum which he had with him for his own journey, to restore her under safe convoy to Yemen. The captive heard him with gratitude and astonishment; and weighing the difficulties of return and the chance of an evil reception by her family, against the protection which she felt assured of receiving from so benevolent a master, she declined the proffered boon, and earnestly begged that she might be conveyed to India in his service. Meer Hadjee Shah was at first a little perplexed at this unexpected proposition, and he whispered something about his wife and children; but when Fatima persisted, the accommodating nature of the Mohammedan law stood him greatly in stead. No "After maturely weighing all the circumstances of the voyage by sea, and the long journey by land from Bombay to Lucknow, he came to the determination of giving Fatima a legal claim to his protection, and thereby a security also from slanderous imputations either against her or himself, by marrying her before they embarked at Mocha; and on their arrival at Lucknow, Fatima was presented to his first wife as worthy her sympathy and kindness, by whom she was received and cherished as a dear sister. The whole family were sincerely attached to the amiable lady during the many years she lived with them in Hindoostaun. Her days were passed in piety and peace, leaving not an instance to call forth the regrets of Meer Hadjee Shah, that he had complied with her entreaties in giving her his permanent protection. Her removal from this life to a better was mourned by every member of the family with equal sorrow as when their dearest relative ceased to live," — Observations, &c. Vol. 11. pp. 417, 418. Of the severity of the Mussulmaun's Fast during Rumzaun it is probable that very inadequate notions are in general entertained. As it is moveable it sometimes occurs during the hottest and longest days of the year, and it lasts from the moment at which the first streak of light borders the East, till the stars are clearly discerned. During that interval not one particle of food nor drop of liquid passes the lips, and even the hookha, a great antidote to hunger, is rigidly forbidden. It is usually broken by a cooling draught called tundhie, composed of the seeds of lettuces, cucumbers, melons, and coriander, pounded in water, strained, and flavored with rosewater, sugar, syrup of pomegranate and kurah, a pleasant water distilled from the blossoms of a species of aloe. Without some such preparatory beverage, which varies according to taste, age, constitution, and pocket, the immediate relief of hunger by solids would be attended with danger. The noviciate fast of children is a great family event, and often productive of very distressing consequences. Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali mentions the deaths of a son and daughter of respectable parents in Lucknow, which occurred within her own knowledge, during their attempt to perform this most painful duty. The unhappy victims of superstition were respectively thirteen and eleven years of age. Encouraged by their mother, they persevered with constancy till three of the four watches into which the Mussulmaun day is divided had passed. They then fainted from exhaustion; every attempt to force water down their swollen throats failed, and they died within a few minutes of each other. Custom renders the seclusion to which females are condemned in the Zeenahnah, far less irksome than is imagined by a European habituated to freedom. The commonest operations of nature, even in the processes of the garden, are unknown to them; and when they received a dhaullie or basket of fruit, vegetables, and flowers, they frequently inquired from Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, "How do they grow? How do they look in the ground?" Yet of their resignation to this ignorance she offers the following remarkable example: "A lady, whose friendship I have enjoyed from my first arrival in India, heard me very often speak of the different places I had visited, and she fancied her happiness very much depended on seeing a river and a bridge. I undertook to gain permission from her husband and father, that the treat might be permitted; they, however, did not approve of the lady being gratified, and I was vexed to be obliged to convey the disappointment to my friend. She very mildly answered me, 'I was much to blame to request what I knew was improper for me to be indulged in; I hope my husband and family will not be displeased with me for my childish wish; pray make them understand how much I repent of my folly. I shall be ashamed to speak on the subject when we meet."— Vol. 1. pp. 315, 316. In the medical art, the Mussulmauns still retain many supersti tious practices, and sundry remnants of astrology continue to find place in their Pharmacopoeia. In nervous cases and for palpitations of the heart, the patient is often recommended to "drink the moon at a draught," which remedy is thus administered; a silver basin filled with water is so held as to receive the reflection of the full moon; and the sick person after having looked steadfastly at the image, is to shut his eyes and to swallow the water at a draught. "I have seen this practised," says Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, adding with exquisite simplicity, "but I am not aware of any "real benefit derived by the patient from the prescription." A most astounding story is one related by a Mussulmaun gentleman of his own achievements in exorcism. The conversation arose in consequence of an attack upon an old woman in the streets of Lucknow, who, as a reputed witch, was declared to be "eating "the heart" of a man and his child wasting away under her incantations. She was rescued after some difficulty, and not till her accuser had been permitted to pluck some hairs from her head as an antidote to her charms. A friend of Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, who had been the chief agent in this poor wretch's deliverance from the infuriated rabble, afterwards declared his implicit belief in the common practice of witchcraft; and added that he himself had been a chosen instrument through which several women had been relieved from possession by evil spirits. Curiosity on this mysterious point had induced him, when a very young man, to apply to "a certain venerable personage who was willing to impart "his knowledge;" and who recommended, in the first instance, two years seclusion from the world, in abstinence, prayer, and austerity. Thus prepared for practice, and having acquired a great reputation as a dervise, his first experiment was tried on a respectable woman who fancied that she was visited by a demon regularly, on every eighth day. The only apparatus with which the fiend was attacked was fumigation; and no sooner were the drugs and flowers of the exorcist sprinkled on the chafiing-dish than the demon became furious in the woman, and called out loudly for mercy. To an interrogation as to who and what it was, it replied that it was the spirit of an old woman who once inhabited the same house; and that it had taken possession of the wife in order to torment the husband, who was the present owner of the premises. It may be remarked that few ghosts, even in Europe, ever give more satisfactory reasons for their appearance than did this imp of Hindústan; insomuch that we might almost venture to pledge ourselves to a belief in the authenticity of any spectre who could once prove on sound evidence that he came back to this world on other than a fee-faw-fum errand. The exorcist threatened to destroy the spirit in fire, and the poor woman's agony immediately became so terrific that instant death was apprehended. After two hours conversation, during which the devil evinced the extent of his knowledge by twice informing the dervise what was the substance which he held concealed in his clenched hand; and also avowed his belief in one God the creator of all things; it agreed to a compromise, and on condition of being relieved from the fiery torment, it promised faithfully to quit the woman and to go out into the forests. During several months afterwards the freed energumen enjoyed health and tranquillity. But on the reappearance of some former symptoms the aid of the dervise was again required; and then by destroying the "Evil Soul," he gave his patient permanent ease. It is but just to Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali to state that although convinced of the sincerity of the friend from whose lips she received this choice piece of autobiography, she plainly believes him to have labored under delusion. But it is high time to direct ourselves to Captain Mundy with whom we shall commence in his first tiger-hunt in the Dooab. The party consisted of ten sportsmen, each mounted on an elephant, and twenty pad elephants besides, to carry the guides and the game. On rousing the first tiger, every elephant but that of Lord Combermere turned about and made off expeditiously; the beast, however, was killed, and so, not long afterwards, was a second; a third sprang on the upper part of the tail of one of the elephants and clung to it with its teeth, within six inches of the unhappy coolie, who stood behind the howdah; and it was not shot till the elephant had been so much injured that it died within ten days from the effect of its wounds. The second essay in this agreeable pastime was attended with far more danger than the first, and the double fences and swollen brooks of Leicestershire sink into insignificance before the perils of the jungle. "On clearing the wood, we entered an open space of marshy grass, not three feet high; a large herd of cattle were feeding there, and the herdsman was sitting, singing, under a bush, when, just as the former began to move before us, up sprung the very tiger to whom our visit was intended, and cantered off across a bare plain, dotted with small patches of bushjungle. He took to the open country in a style which would have more become a fox than a tiger, who is expected by his pursuers to fight, and not to run; and as he was flushed on the flank of the line, only one bullet was fired at him ere be cleared the thick grass. He was unhurt, and we pursued him at fuil speed. Twice he threw us out by stopping short in small strips of jungle, and then heading back after we had passed; and he had given us a very fast burst of about two miles, when Colonel Arnold,. who led the field, at last reached him by a capital shot, his elephant being in full career. As soon as he felt himself wounded, the tiger crept into a close thicket of trees and bushes, and crouched. The two leading sportsmen overran the spot where he lay, and as I came up I saw him through an aperture rising to attempt a charge. My mahout had just before, in the heat of the chase, dropped his ankoos,* which I had refused to allow him to recover; and the elephant being notoriously savage, and further irritated by the goading he had undergone, became, consequently, unmanageable: he appeared to see the tiger as soon as myself, and I had only time to fire one shot, when he suddenly rushed with the greatest fury into the VOL. I. NO. I. * Iron goad to drive the elephant. thicket, and falling upon his knees, nailed the tiger with his tusks to the ground. Such was the violence of the shock, that my servant, who sat behind in the kawas, * was thrown out, and one of my guns went overboard. The struggles of the elephant to crush his still resisting foe, who had fixed one paw on his eye, were so energetic, that I was obliged to hold on with all my strength to keep myself in the howdah. The second barrel, too, of the gun, which I still retained in my hand, went off in the scuffle, the ball passing close to the mahout's ear, whose situation, poor fellow, was anything but enviable. As soon as my elephant was prevailed upon to leave the killing part of the business to the sportsmen, they gave the roughlyused tiger the coup-de-grace. It was a very fine female, with the most beautiful skin I ever saw."- Vol. 1. pp. 160–163. Nor was the sportsman's repose less hazardous than his situation in the field. On the night after these exploits he was awakened by the attack of a black robber in his tent. "I retired to my tent this evening pretty well knocked up; and during the night had an adventure, which might have terminated with more loss to myself, had I slept sounder. My bed, a low charpoy, or four feet,' was in one corner of the tent, close to a door, and I woke several times from a feverish doze, fancying I heard something moving in my tent; but could not discover anything, though a cherang, or little Indian lamp, was burning on the table. I therefore wooed the balmy power, and slept. At length, just as the iron tongue of midnight had told twelve' (for I had looked at my watch five minutes before, and replaced it under my pillow), I was awakened by a rustling sound under my head; and, half opening my eyes, without changing my position, I saw a hideous black face within a foot of mine, and the owner of this index of a cut-throat, or, at least, cutpurse disposition, kneeling on the carpet, with one hand under my pillow, and the other grasping-not a dagger!- but the door post. Still without moving my body, and with half-closed eyes, I gently stole my right hand to a boar-spear, which at night was always placed between my bed and the wall; and as soon as I had clutched it, made a rapid and violent movement, in order to wrench it from its place, and try the virtue of its point upon the intruder's body, but I wrenched in vain. Fortunately for the robber, my bearer, in placing the weapon in its usual recess, had forced the point into the top of the tent and the butt into the ground so firmly, that I failed to extract it at the first effort; and my visiter, alarmed by the movement, started upon his feet and rushed through the door. I had time to see that he was perfectly naked, with the exception of a black blanket twisted round his loins, and that he had already stowed away in his cloth my candlesticks and my dressing-case, which latter contained letters, keys, money, and other valuables. I had also leisure, in that brief space, judge, from the size of the arm extended to my bed, that the bearer was more formed for activity than strength; and, by his grizzled beard, that he was rather old than young. I, therefore, sprung from my bed, and darting through the purdar of the inner door, seized him by the cummerbund just as he was passing the outer entrance. † The cloth, however, being loose, gave way, and ere I could confirm my grasp, he snatched it from my hand, tearing away my thumb-nail down to the quick. In his anxiety to escape, he stumbled through the outer purdar, and the much-esteemed dressing * Hind seat in the howdah. to The tents in India have double flies; the outer khanaut, or wall, forming a verandah, of some four feet wide, round the interior pavilion." |