an Hindostanee air on a sitar (a native instrument made of a goord); up started all the slaves in an instant and set to, dancing with their food in their hands and their mouths full! Each slave girl carried her curry and rice on the wheaten cake, which was about the size of a plate, and used it as such; until having eaten the contents she finished with the cake. In spite of their dexterity in putting the food down their throats without dropping the rice or soiling their dresses, the fingers retain a considerable portion of the yellow turmeric and the greasy ghee! They eat custards, rice, and milk, and more fluid food with the hand, sucking the fingers to clean them, and afterwards wipe them dry with a chapātī! They were merry, and fat, and happy, unless the Begam happened to catch one out in a theft, when the other girls punished her. Some of the slaves were pretty girls, and great favourites. To show how little they had to do, the following anecdote may suffice. A pretty slave girl was sitting by my bedside; I held out my hand, and desired her to shampoo it: the girl's countenance became clouded, and she did not offer to do it—her name was Tara (the Star). "Why do you not mull my hand, Tara?" said I. "Oh," she replied, "I never mull the hand; the other girls do that; I only mull the Colonel Sāhib's eye-brows. I can take the pain from them when he is ill;—that is my duty. I will not shampoo the hand." I laughed at her description of the work that fell to her lot as a slave, and said, "Well, Tara, mull my eye-brows; my head aches;" with the greatest good-humour she complied, and certainly charmed away the pain. It is the great luxury of the East.
I might have lived fifty years in India and never have seen a native wedding. It is hardly possible for a European lady to be present at one. Alaida and her sister the Evening Star learnt to read and write Persian; a very old moonshee was allowed to teach them. Musulmānī ladies generally forget their learning when they grow up, or they neglect it. Every thing that passes without the four walls is reported to them by their spies: never was any place so full of intrigue, scandal, and chit-chat as a zenāna. Making up marriages is their great delight, and the
