Chapter XXXIII: Appendix: D

VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF MEER IBRAHIM KHAN TALPUR A BELOCH CHIEF.

_Another specimen of Richard's fresh writings in Scinde._

"Enter Mr. Hari Chand, a portly pulpy Hindoo, the very type of his unamiable race, with a cat-like gait, a bow of exquisite finish; a habit of sweetly smiling under every emotion, whether the produce of a bribe or a kick; a softly murmuring voice, with a tendency to sinking; and a glance which seldom meets yours, and when it does, seems not quite to enjoy the meeting. How timidly he appears at the door! How deferentially he slides in, salaams, looks deprecating, and at last is induced to sit down! Above all things, how he listens! Might he not be mistaken for a novel kind of automaton, into which you can transfer your mind and thoughts--a curious piece of human mechanism in the shape of a creature endowed with all things but a self?

"You would start could you read his thoughts at the very moment that you are forming such opinions of him.

"'Well, Hari Chand' (after the usual salutations), 'and pray what manner of man may be this Meer Ibrahim Khan.--Talpur, is he not?'

"'Wah! wah! What a Chieftain! What a very Nushirawan[1] for all-shading equity! a Hátim for overflowing generosity--a Rustam--

"'That is to say, always considering that he is a Beloch,' says Hari Chand, perceiving by the expression of _my_ face that _his_ opinion requires modifying.

"'For a Beloch! The Sahab's exalted intelligence has of course comprehended the extra fact that they are all dolts, asses, fools. But this Ibrahim Khan, saving the Sahab's presence, is not one of them. Quite the contrary.'

"'You mean he is a rogue!'

"'The Sahab has the penetration of an arrow--a rogue of the first water!

"'A rogue of the first water. He has won the wealth of Bokhara and Samarcand by the sunshine of the countenance of the Honourable Company, to whom he sells camels at six pounds a head, after compelling his subjects to receive two pounds for them. Ah! well said the poet--

"I would rather be a companion of devils
Than the ryot of an unjust king."

"'He has almost doubled the size and resources of his jagir (feof), by the friendship of certain Sahabs who--' (here we must stop Hari Chand's tongue with a look). 'And when the Valiant Company allows him twenty thousand rupees to excavate his canals and improve his land, he--the Lord bless him!--expends half, and lays by the other moiety in his coffers.

"'But,' pursues Hari Chand, delighted that we allow him a reasonably free use of his subject, 'has not the Sahab seen with his own eyes what a prodigious thief he is? Did not the poor Scindian complain yesterday that his camel had been stolen from him? and the peasants, that they were starving? and the Hindoos, that they were ruined? Every man, to be sure, may cut off his own dog's tail! It were well, however, if nothing worse could be said about this Ibrahim.'

"Now Mr. Hari Chand's countenance assumes that deep mysterious expression which courts the operation of 'pumping.' After which, chuckling internally at having secured for himself the acute gratification of being able to tear a man's reputation to shreds, he resumes in a low soft tone of voice, as if the tent walls had ears--

"'He murdered his elder brother! Yes, Sahab, before the battle of Meeanee, Ibrahim was a poor sorry fellow, a cadet who was not even allowed to sit in the presence of the great. But

"The world is a water-wheel, and men the pots upon it;
Now their heads are beneath the stones, now they are raised high
to heaven."

"'At the battle of Meeanee a matchlock ball pierced the occiput of Ibrahim's brother, and the clan, when they saw their Chief bite the dust, ran away like sheep, headed by Ibrahim Khan, the leader of the flock, who ran a little faster than the rest to show the line of direction. When the Fort of Hyderabad surrendered, one of the first persons that gave up his dangerous sword to the General Sahab, was Ibrahim Khan, who had the address to oust his nephew from the inheritance, and by plentiful foxplay took all the carcase from the tiger.

"'And now,' continues Hari Chand, anxious to improve each fleeting minute, 'Ibrahim, who five years ago was not allowed to show his mouth at Court, sits on a chair before the Collector and pays visits to the Madams--the ladies of the English. He has ventured to boast that one of them is desperately enamoured of him.' ('This,' says Hari Chand to himself, 'will irritate the fools'--ourselves, Mr. Bull--'beyond measure.') 'He drinks curaçoa and brandy like a Sahab. He has become proud. Yesterday, for instance, instead of coming out for miles and miles to meet the Sawari----

"'The Sahab is a servant of the Honourable Company--long be its prosperity! Whose dog is Ibrahimoo,[2] that he should treat the "lords of the sword and pen"[3] in this disgraceful way? that he should send that owl[4] of a nephew to greet them with his hootings, and venture to be absent when they arrive at his grave?[5] Had Smith Sahab the Collector' ('now I have that red-coated infidel on the hip,' thinks Hari Chand) 'been coming with his writers, and his scribes, and his secretaries, and his guards, and all his retinue, Ibrahim would have been present to kiss his feet. And why? Because Smith Sahab is a--good easy man, who allows the bandit to do what he pleases. Ah, well said Nizami--[6]

"The joys of this world!--donkeys have engrossed them.
Would to Allah, Nizami had been a donkey!"

"'But perhaps,' continues Hari Chand during a short pause, in which time his mind had been almost preternaturally active, 'it is not so much Ibrahim's crime as that of Kakoo Mall.'

"'And who may Kakoo Mall be?'

"'Kakoo Mall? The Sahab does not know who Kakoo Mall is? Ibrahim's head moonshee, a Khudabadi Banyan of a fellow' (our man, Mr. Bull, is a Sehwani, a Green instead of a Brown), 'and one of the most unscrupulous ruffians that ever carried inkstand in his belt.'

"Thereupon a fierce worrying of Kakoo Mall's character. In common charity I would draw our man off, only that most probably Kakoo Mall is about this time abusing us and Hari Chand to Ibrahim, just as violently as Hari Chand abuses Ibrahim and Kakoo Mall to us.

"'He will, I would swear, do his best that your honours may not be treated with the courtesy due to your rank, and that I, your humble servant, may be insulted.'

"'Very well, moonshee, we will look after him. You may go. At eleven we start for our visit. Be ready to accompany us; and don't be afraid of Kakoo Mall.'

"'Under the shadow of your eagle wings,' replies Hari Chand, with a lovely bow, 'what have I to fear from the puny talons of the carrion crow?'

* * * * *

"We mount our horses, still in native costume, and cross the village, our moonshee ambling by our side, and a few ferocious Afghan servants bringing up the rear, much to the astonishment and quite to the admiration of its inhabitants.

"We reach the courtyard gate of the Talpur's dwelling. Three ragged rascals, with sheathed swords in their hands and daggers in their belts, headed by another nephew, rush up to us as if their intention were to begin by cutting our throats. The young Chief, seizing our hands, chatters forth a thousand congratulations, salutations, and messages, nearly tears us from our saddles, and demands concerning our happiness, in tones which rise high above the whooping and yelling of his followers. One fellow rushes away to pass the word, 'They come.' And out pours a whole rout to witness the event, and, by their presence, to communicate to it all possible importance.

"After jostling and being jostled through half a dozen narrow gateways, we arrive opposite the verandah, under which stands Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur. I see this reception is to be a poor attempt at court ceremonial.

"We dismount--twenty men pressing forward to hold our stirrups, the whole party yelling 'Bismillah!' (in the name of Allah) as our feet touch the ground. Then Ibrahim Khan, pressing forward, seizes our hands, wrings our arms in their sockets, and--oh, compliment with which we might readily have dispensed!--precipitates himself upon our bosoms, clasping us firmly to a 'corporation,' and applying a rough-bearded chin to the upper portions of both our shoulder-blades consecutively.

"We are led in with our slippers on. Our host has not removed his, consequently we will continue to wear ours. Another volley of inquiries and another series of huggings, as we are led up to the silken ottoman, upon which he, the Chief, and his eldest nephew are to sit, a motley crowd of relations, friends, acquaintances, dependants, and any one who happened to be passing the house at the time, pressing in, looking curiously at us and fearfully at our retainers. All arrange themselves with the noise of a troop of ravens upon the floor.

"Observe, Mr. John Bull, in the corner of the room Hari Chand and Kakoo Mall, almost weeping with joy, throw themselves upon each other, and murmur _mezzo-voce_ thanks to that Heaven which hath thus permitted the tree of hope to put forth green leaves and to bear sweet fruit.

"Charming this choice blossom of true civilization, blooming amid the desert of barbarism around it! Had a violet or a forget-me-not appeared to us in the centre of Ibrahim Khan's courtyard, the sight would scarcely have been more suggestive. What memories it revives! One of them--

"When the fascinating Lady F. Macarthy, an authoress and a _femme d'esprit_, had sketched with a pencil, stolen from Wit, the character of her bosom friend, Miss Anne Clotworthy Crawley, and published the same, the English world laughed, but Dublin joyed with double joy.

"Dublin joyed thus: firstly, at seeing the picture; secondly, at foreseeing the scene it would occasion when the sketcher and the sketched met for the first time in public. There was much of anticipation, much of vague and happy expectation, in this idea.

"Was it disappointed?

"No! At the next ball, Lady Florence, unwilling to show Miss Crawley that she could not use as well as abuse a friend, and Miss Crawley, as unwilling to show Lady Florence her consciousness of having been abused as she deserved, both with one impulse at the same moment clave the crowd, and--they had been parted at least five days--kissed each other with all the ardour of feminine friendship.

"'And faith,' said every Irishman of the hundred who witnessed the scene--'and 'faith, I disp'hised them both!'

"Kiss on, Kakoo Mall and Hari Chand!

* * * * *

"At the end of the time the host motions away his pipe, and prepares himself to converse and hor! hor! with renewed vigour.

"'Were you at Nasir Khan's fight?'--so the battle of Meeanee is called by the Scindians, as opposed to Sher Mohammed's fight, the battle of Dubbah.

"We reply in the negative, and suspect that we are in for one of our noble host's stock stories.

"'Hor! hor! that _was_ an affair. O Allah, Allah Akbar! was ever the like of it before?'

"'Then you were present, Meer Sahab?'[7]

"'I--yes, indeed I was. I went out with all the vassals of my poor brother' (a broad grin), 'whom you killed. Look at his son, my nephew there' (pointing to the lean scowler sitting by his side). 'Well, you killed his poor father. And, hor! hor! you would have killed me,' pursues Ibrahim, highly amused by the idea, 'but I was a little too sharp even for the Frank.'

"We stimulate him by an inquiry.

"'How?' he vociferates. 'Why, when we went out of the tent to attack you we started to hunt the deer. Some carried swords, others spears, and many sticks, because we wanted to thrash you soundly for your impudence--not to kill you, poor things. My brother--now Allah illumine his grave!--was a simple-minded man, who said, "What can the iron of the Angreez[8] do against the steel of the Beloch?"

"'We drew up in a heap, eager for the onslaught. Presently some guns of yours appeared; they unlimbered: they began to fire. So did ours; but somehow or other we shot over you, you shot into us. I was on the other part of the field, so of course I didn't care much for that. But, a few minutes afterwards, what did we see?--a long red line, with flashing spikes, come sweeping over the plain towards us like a simoom.

"'Allah, Allah! what are these dogs doing? They are not running away? All my poor brother's men put the same question.

"'Then bang went the great guns, phit the little guns; the Franks prayed aloud to the Shaitan with a loud, horrible voice; we to Allah. What a mosque full of mullahs it was, to be sure![9] Who could fight? We howled defiance against them. Still they came on. We stood and looked at them. Still they came on. We rushed and slashed at them, like Rustams. Still they came on--the white fiends.[10] And, by Allah, when we ran away, still they came after us. It was useless to encounter this kind of magic; the head magician sitting all the time on the back of a little bay horse, waving his hat in circles, and using words which those that heard them sounded like the language of devils. I waited till my poor brother fell dead. Then I cried to the vassals, "Ye base-born, will you see your chieftain perish unavenged?" And, having done my best to fight like a soldier, I thought I had a right to run like one--hor! hor!

"'But now tell me--you are an Englishman--is there any chance of the Ameer's ever returning from captivity?'

"The assembly, after being convulsed with laughter during the Chief's account of his prowess at the battle of Meeanee--there are 'toadies' in Scinde as elsewhere--was breathless whilst he awaited our answer to his question.

"'No, Meer Sahab, there is none. The morning of prosperity has at length dawned upon Scinde. It leads to a day that knows no return of night!'

"'Allah Tuhar--the Lord be thy preserver!' There was no laugh as Ibrahim Khan uttered this short prayer.

"We rise; so does every man in the room. Vehemently are we pressed to stay. Vehemently do we refuse. Then there is a rushing to the doors, a whooping for horses, an appearance of the animals, madly kicking and plunging because ten hands are holding each bridle. The Chief accompanies us as far as the main gate of his palace, shaking hands, laughing violently, and catechizing us about our healths and brains; he repeats his delight at having made friendship with us, and, as a conclusion, again clasps us to that development which would not disgrace the fat fame of a Falstaff.

* * * * *

[What can be more true or witty, more picturesque and characteristic, than this picture of a Beloch dinner and tea party?--I. B.]

"'A tea-party! 'What horrible goblins of the past are conjured up by these three syllables!

* * * * *

"The first object that meets our glance, as we near the tents, is a line of Belochies drawn up behind a row of earthen pots, in shape and hue by no means unlike monstrous turnips. These--the turnips--are a present of choice confectionery; material, coarse sugar, rice, flour, spices, and clarified butter--always sent in token of friendship or favour. There are ten pots full for you, the 'great gentleman,' eight for me, the thinner man, one for our moonshee, who looks a profound disgust at not having received two, and the rest for the servants. The latter will obtain, although they cannot claim, possession of the whole, and the result will be a general indigestion, which nothing but a certain preparation of tartar can remove. Half a pound of the foul mixture would place our lives in imminent peril. Another uncomfortable effect of the ceremony is, that in this case, as on all occasions where an Oriental sends you a present, a return is expected, and the amount of the return is supposed exactly to show at what rate you value yourself. We must give vails to all the fellows, otherwise we shall be called 'fly-suckers,' _i.e._ skinflints--a reputation which you, in your own country and in these days, seem rather to court than to avoid, Mr. Bull; but what the East is not yet sufficiently enlightened to appreciate. We must also send a 'token' to the noble giver of the sweetmeats. If we withhold it, he will not be too shamefaced to apply for it in person. I remarked that, during the visit, he repeatedly admired your ring--a bloodstone with the family crest, a lion rampant, upon it. Send it to him, with an epigrammatic compliment, which I will impromptu for you, and you will earn, as the natives say, a 'great name.'

* * * * *

"'Well, Hari Chand, how progresses the Ameer?'

"'The Ameer? Your exalted intelligence will understand most prosperously, only he has robbed his ryots of all their camels, and now he is quarrelling with the neighbouring jagirdars (country gentlemen) in order to get theirs to cheat the Company with; he has depopulated the land of small birds to feed his twenty hawks; he has been to Hyderabad and has returned stark-staring mad, swearing that he drank two sahibs under the table, and made love to every madam[11] in the place' (Hari Chand is determined to excite our _ghairat_, or jealousy, on that point by perpetually hammering at it); 'he has married another wife, although people say he has five[12] already; the new one being a devil, fights with all the old ones, who try to poison her; and his eldest daughter, when on a visit to the capital, ran away with a mounted policeman. Wah! wah! Verily, it is a noble family, as the poet said of the people of Cabul--

"A most distinguished race are they;
The men can't say 'Yes,' the women can't say 'No.'"'[13]

"'And Kakoo Mall?'

"'Oh, Kakoo Mall! He is making a fortune by sedulously practising all kinds of iniquities. Praised be Allah! what a scoundrel he is! It would take hours to sketch out his villanies even for the exalted intelligence of your honours to comprehend them. But one of these days Kakoo must and will come to a bad end, a very bad end, which may be a warning to mankind.'

"This prediction, Mr. Bull, is simply the result of envy on the part of Hari Chand, who would give one of his eyes for the unlimited powers of doing evil, that good (to himself) might come of it, which he represents Kakoo Mall to enjoy. Of course he alludes piously to the vengeance of the gods, but the reference is an habitual one; the heart knows nothing about what the tongue speaks.

"'Ut sit magna, tamen certe lenta ira decrum est,' is a sentiment which misleads the Eastern as well as the Western would-be criminal. These people theoretically own the idea of retribution in this certain life; practically, they act as if sure to evade it. An unseen, an uncertain punishment has so little effect when threatened from afar! Offended Heaven may so easily be propitiated by vain oblations, and equally vain repentance. And, after all, celestial vengeance so often comes too late--a man may enjoy himself so many years before the blow descends! So they never neglect to threaten one another with the _ira deorum_, and always sit in the teeth of it themselves.

* * * * *

"Here is the Sawári, the retinue. Meer Ibrahim Khan, all crimson and gold, alights from his steed, a handsome Beloch mare, whose bridle and head-gear are covered with grotesque silver ornaments, and stands a moment patting her, to show off her points and equipments. The saddle is richly mounted--though far inferior to those used by some of the petty Indian princes, whose led horses are decked in harness plated with precious metals studded with diamonds--and there is no deficiency, at the same time no particular attraction, in the abundance of girth, housing, martingale and crupper, with which a gentleman's animal in this part of the world must be lumbered.

"Ibrahim Khan prepares for dinner by dismissing all his attendants but one, Kakoo Mall, who remains to 'toady' his highness, to swear the truth of every falsehood the great man tells, to supply him with an idea or a word whenever conversation does not flow glibly, and to be insulted, 'chaffed' and derided, _tour à tour_, as the ill-humour or joviality of his Chief prevail. The Ameer's quick glance has detected that we have nought but ale and cognac to offer him; that point settled, he assures his mind by feeling the smooth insides of our wine-glasses, by taking up the spoons, avoiding their handles, by producing brown facsimiles of his thumbs upon the white surface of the salt, by converting the mustard-pot into a scent-bottle, and by correcting any little irritation of the epidermis with our only corkscrews.

"'Will you take a glass of the water of life, Meer Sahab?'

"Perhaps, Mr. Bull, you expect our visitor to drink a few drops of brandy, as the French take _un petit verre d'absinthe pour ouvrir l'appetit_. If so, a quarter of an hour will convince you of your mistake.

"Ibrahim Khan hands his gold-hilted sabre to the Afghan servant--who receives it at a distance, as if it bit, with a sneering smile, for which he shall presently receive well-merited correction--sees it deposited in the corner of the tent, and then seating himself heavily upon the edge of the cot of honour opposite the dinner-table, he clutches a tumbler, blows warmly into it, polishes the damp interior with his pocket-handkerchief, and prepares to attack the liquid part of his meal.

"We must join him if you please. In Scinde men drink before, in England after, dinner. At home, the object, we say, is to pass time pleasantly over a glass of wine; here, they honestly avow, they drink to get drunk, and wonder what makes you do the same, disclaiming all intention of doing it. The Eastern practice is admirable for securing the object proposed to itself; every one knows that half a bottle upon an empty stomach does the duty of two emptied under converse circumstances. Moreover, the Scindians declare that alcohol before meals whets the appetite, enlivens the spirits, and facilitates digestion. Habit is everything. I should advise you, Mr. John Bull, to follow the Meer's example at humble distance; otherwise a portly old gentleman in a state of roaring intoxication, singing and speechifying, excited combativeness and general benevolence, may be the concluding scene of this feast of unreason.

"The dinner passes off rapidly. Ibrahim Khan eats quite as much as he drinks. Not contented with scooping up masses of boiled rice, hard eggs, and unctuous stews, in his palm, now and then stripping a kabab-stick[14] with his fingers, and holding up a large bone to his mouth with both hands, he proposes after our example to practise the knife and fork. With these articles, the former in the left, the latter in the right fist, he attempts to dissect a roast fowl, which dances away from him, as if it had vitality, over the damask, to the tune of loud hor! hors! Again he tries--again he fails, although he prefaced the second attempt by a Bismillah: 'Heathen dog' (to Kakoo Mall), 'is the soul of thy father in this bit of carrion?' for which gross insult[15] the Hindoo mentally fines his lord a thousand rupees, to be cheated the first opportunity. At last, desperate by the failure of many efforts, he throws away the fork, transfers the knife to his right hand, and grasping with his left the animal's limbs, he tears it piecemeal with a facility which calls for a loud explosion of mirth.

"I never yet saw an Oriental laugh at himself so readily. Generally speaking, childlike, they are nervously and uncomfortably sensitive to ridicule of all kinds. Nothing offends them more lastingly than a caricature, be it the most good-natured. A writer of satire in Persia rarely dies an easy death; and the present race must be numbered amongst things that were, before a man could edit, at Teheran, a number of _Punch_ and live through the day.

"Scindian cookery is, like the country and its native, a link between the Iranian and the Indian systems. Central Asia is pre-eminently the land of good living and of masterly _artistes_, men as truly great in their exquisite art as Paris or Naples ever produced: it teems with enjoyment to the philosophic _bon vivant_, who will apply his mind to naturalizing his palate. Amongst the Hindoos, the _matériel_ of the _cuisine_ is too limited, consequently there is a monotony in the succession of rice-dishes and vegetables: moreover, the bilious ghee enters into almost every preparation, the sweets are cloying, and the profuse spices annoying to the tasteful palate. In Scinde there are dawnings of culinary light, which would in a happier moral clime usher in a brilliant day. You have seldom eaten anything better--I will answer for the fact, Mr. Bull--than a _salmi_ of black partridge, with a garnishing of stewed _bengans_, or egg-plants.

"The repast ends more abruptly than it began. The Scindian, as the boa-constrictor, is always torpid after his ample meal, and he holds to the apothegm of the Salernitan school--

'Post prandium est dormiendum.'

You may observe our guest's fat heavy eyelids winking and drooping with progressive somnolency as the time for his _siesta_ draws nigh. He calls for a cup of lukewarm milk--the invariable and offensive conclusion to dinner here; apologizes for leaving us--he must go to his prayers and attend to his guest-house[16]--promises a return to tea in the evening, calls for his horse, mounts it and retires.

"Now that he has gone, perhaps you also, sir, may have 'letters to write.'

* * * * *

"'Ibrahimoo was so full of wine,' remarks Hari Chand, 'with these eyes I saw him almost tumble over his animal. He go to pray! He went to prepare for the evening's work. As for his guest-house, it is called by all the poor around, "House of Hunger." Your honours, I hear, gave him only beer and brandy. You will see him presently return with a donkey's load of bottles. And I am told that he is going to bring his eldest boy. Ah, your honours must button up your pouches now!'

* * * * *

"Here comes the Ameer with some additions to his former escort, Kakoo Mall; a little brown boy five or six years old, a minstrel, and a servant carrying many 'grey-beards.'

"In few parts of the world do you see prettier children than those of the higher class in Scinde. Their features are delicate and harmonious; the forehead is beautifully _bombé_; the full, rounded cheek shows almost olive-coloured by the side of the silky black curls; and there is an intelligence and a vivacity which you scarcely expect to see in their large, long, lustrous black eyes. Their forms are equal to their faces; for symmetry and finish they might serve as models to the well-provided Murillo or Correggio. And the simplicity of their dress--a skull-cap, a little silk frock like a night-gown, confined with a waist-shawl in which sticks the tiniest of daggers, and a pair of loose slippers--contrasts most advantageously with the dancing-dog costumes with which your good lady, Mr. Bull, invests her younger offspring, or the unsightly jackets and waistcoats conferred upon Billy when breeched. If you like their dress you will also admire their behaviour. The constant habit of society makes them companionable at an age when your progeny is fit for nothing but confinement in a loose box called a nursery. The boy here stands before his father, or sits with him when ordered, more staidly than one of your adults would do. He listens with uncommon gravity to the conversation of his seniors, answers pithily and respectfully when addressed, and never requires to be lectured upon the text, 'Little children are made to be seen and not heard.' At eight years of age he is master of the _usages_; he will receive you at the door in the absence of his progenitor, hand you to your proper seat in the room, converse with you, compliment you, call for pipes, offer you sweetmeats, invite you to dinner, and dismiss you without failing in a single point. As a boy he is a little man, and his sister in the harem is a little woman. This you may object to on the score of taste; say that it robs childhood of its chief charm, the natural, the innocent, and all that kind of thing. At any rate, you must own that it also preserves us from the very troublesome displays of the said charm in the form of pertness, selfishness, turbulence, and all the unlovely details comprehended in your 'naughtiness'--the Irish 'boldness.'

"Our admiration of their children is reciprocated by the Orientals. I have heard of a Chief travelling many miles to see the fair and flaxen hair of a 'European baby;' and 'Beautiful as a white child' is almost a proverb amongst the dark-skinned Maharattas.

"We must treat Master Ibrahim--I beg his pardon, Meer Jan Mohammed Khan Talpur, as he sententiously names himself--with especial attention, as a mark of politeness to his father. We insist upon his sitting down--upon the highest seat, too--inquire with interest after his horse and his hawk, look at his dagger, and slip in a hope that he may be as brave a soldier as his father. But we must not tell him that he is a pretty boy, or ask him his age, or say anything about his brothers and sisters, otherwise we offend against the _convenances_. And when we wish him to be sent home--that venerable maxim,

'Maxima debetur puero reverenda,'

is still venerated in the East--we give him a trifling _tohfeh_ (present), a pocket-pistol or a coloured print, and then he will feel that the object of his mission has been fulfilled. In Central Asia a child's visit is a mere present-trap.

"You admire the row of bottles displayed upon the table--a dozen at least of champagne and sherry, curaçoa and noyau, brandy and gin, soda-water and pale ale. You will wonder still more when you see Ibrahim Khan disposing of their contents recklessly, mixing them (after consumption) by tumblers full, intoxicating himself with each draught, and in each twenty minutes' interval becoming, by dint of pushing his cap off his brow, scratching his head, abusing his moonshee, and concentrating all the energies of mind and body upon his pipe, sober as judges are said to be.

"A faint 'twang-twang' draws your attention to the corner of the tent. As in the ages preceding Darius, so since his time the _soirée_ of Oriental Cæsar, or Chief, never ended without sweet music.

"Remark the appearance of the performer. He is a dark, chocolate-coloured man with a ragged beard, an opium look, sharp, thin features, and a skin that appears never to have known ablution. A dirty, torn cloth wrapped round his temples acts as turban; the rest of the attire, a long shirt of green cotton and blue drawers, is in a state which may be designated 'disgusting.' In his hand is his _surando_, the instrument of his craft, a rude form of the violin, with four or five sheep-gut strings, which are made to discourse eloquent music by a short crooked bow that contains half the tail of a horse. He is preparing to perform, not in the attitude of a Paganini, but as we see in old Raphaels, and occasionally in the byways of Italy--the instrument resting upon his lap instead of his collar-bone. Before the preliminary scraping ends, whilst the Meer is reviling Kakoo Mall _sotto voce_, a word or two about the fellow and his race.

"The Langho, or, as he is politely and accurately termed, the Manganhar, or 'asker'[17]--they are the most peremptory and persevering of beggars--is a particular caste in Scindi. Anciently all the great clans had their own minstrels, whose duty it was to preserve their tradition for recital on festival occasions, and to attend the Chief in battle, where they noted everything with an eagle's eye, praising those that fought, and raining showers of curses, taunts, and invectives upon those that fled. This part of their occupation is now gone. In the present day they subsist principally by the charity of the people, and by attending at the houses in which their professional services at marriages and other ceremonies are required. They are idle as well as fond of pleasure, dirty, immoral, and notoriously dishonest. _Largesse_ to a minstrel being a gentlemanly way of wasting one's substance in Scinde, those that employ the 'asker' are provoked to liberality till either the will or the way fail. In the mean time he spends every pice, with all the recklessness of a Western _artiste_, in drinking, gambling, and the silliest ostentation. He is not expected to live long, and none knows what becomes of him in his old age.

"Our friend the Meer has, I am told by Hari Chand, suffered so much from these men's sneering encomiums upon his valour and conduct in the late war, that he once tried the experiment of paying them liberally to avoid his palace. Finding that the revenues of Persia would be inadequate to carry out the scheme, he has altered his tactics, and now supports half a dozen of these, on the express condition that they never allude to the battles of Meeanee or Dubbah in his presence.

"And now, as Ibrahim Khan looks tired of attempting to converse with our surly Afghans, and of outraging the feelings of his moonshee, we will lend an ear to Music--heavenly maid--as she springs upon us in grimly guise from the head of Aludo, the minstrel.

"The singing will commence with a favourite rhapsod theme--the murder of the great Lord Bahram, the ancestor of the Talpur Princess--by order of Sarfaraz, the Kalhora; and with the deadliest accuracy will it detail how an individual of lowly birth but brave, Shah Baharo, a Scindian, when ordered by the despot to do the deed, refused, saying, 'I will fight the Beloch like a man.' How Sarfaraz made light of Shah Baharo's chivalry and honour, asking, 'Where is Mohammed the Prophet of Allah, and where is Musaylimah the liar?'[18] How Shah Baharo responded with great temper and a prodigious quantity of good advice, the major part of which was _à propos_ of everything; how Sarfaraz cozened and flattered till he found a willing bravo in Ismail Mombiyani the Scindian; how the said Ismail, being a one-handed man, cut down the valiant Bahram from behind with a sword which he held in his left hand, raised a little higher than usual, and drew down the murdered chief's shoulder; how Ismail, after the assassination, cut off Bahram's head; and, finally, how Sarfaraz looked at it, and gave utterance to unchristianlike sentiments.

"All the terrible minuteness of a French novel of the day or an Italian historical romance!

"The sounds that accompany are more remarkable than the words of the song. Each fresh verse is ushered in by a loud howl so strikingly discordant that your every nerve starts at it, and so prolonged that anticipation wearies of looking forward to its close. To which follows the _aria_, a collection of sharp shatterings, in a key strained at least two notes above the _voce di petto_, which, nevertheless, must be forced up to the mark, falsetto being unknown here. And, lastly, the conclusion of the phrase--a descent into the regions of the _basso_ till the voice dies away, vaguely growling--lost, as it were, and unable to merge from the depths into which it strayed. Then the howl, the chatterings, the soprano scream, and the growl over again. Half an hour of this work goes to the formation of a Scindian melody.

"Melody!

"Well, yes, melody! You see, sir, all around you are ecstatized, consequently there must be something to attract admiration in the performance. Of all the arts, Music is the most conventional. What do you think Orpheus would have thought of Thalberg--Thalberg of Orpheus? The tradition of all ancient people, Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and others, tell of minstrels who worked miracles by the voice, the guitar, the lute, and the lyre. The Music of the Greeks and Romans is beyond our reach; that of the Hindoo and the Persian is still in its old age,--much the same, I suppose, as it was when it began to exist. Accustomed to his own system, the Indian cannot derive the least pleasure from ours. The noisiness confuses him; his ear cannot detect a phrase, and he is ignorant of its harmony as he would be insensible to discord. He wonders greatly how it is that the European, so superior to him in arms and arts, can be so far behind in this one science, and he turns with eagerness to the strain familiar to his ear; not to the 'Hindostanee melodies,' which are occasionally composed in London, but to an honest, downright bit of barbarism such as we have just now heard.

"After my description, you will be astonished to hear that I could do anything but suffer during the endurance of the minstrel's song. At first all was pure torture. Presently the ear, in its despair, began to make friends with the least harsh sounds, as prisoners do with spiders or jailors. Then, as a note or two became familiar, the utter strangeness wore off, and a sensation of grotesque enjoyment, novel and unexplainable, struggled into existence. At last, when a few years had thoroughly broken my taste to bear what you have just heard, I could listen to it not only without the horror you experience, but also with something more like gratification than composure. Possibly I like it better for the disgust it provoked at first. So the Highlander learns to love his screaming, wheezing bagpipe, the German his putrescent _Sauerkraut_, the Frenchman _haut-goût_ in game, the Italian his rancid olives, and all the world their snuff and cigars--things which at first they must, as they were human, have hated.

"The songs generally sung by these Eastern _jongleurs_ are legends, ballads, certain erotic verses which are very much admired by every class, and mystical effusions which the learned enjoy, and which the unlearned, being utterly unable to comprehend them, listen to with the acutest sensations of pleasure. The Homer of Scinde is one Sayyid Abd el Latif, a saintly bard, whose Risalo, or collection of distichs upon traditionary themes of the two passions, Love and War, has been set to different musical modes, and is, by the consenting voice of society, admitted to be a perfect _chef d'œuvre_, a bit of heaven on earth.

"I will translate one of the songs which Aludo sings--a short satirical effusion, directed against the descendants of that celebrated man by some Scindian poet, who appears fond of using the figure irony.

"AN ODE TO THE HOLY MEN OF BHIT.[19]

1.
"'Ye monks of Bhit, whose holy care
In fast and penance, wake and prayer!
Your lips and eyes bespeak a love
From low earth weaned to Heaven above!
Your hearts have rent all carnal ties,
Abjured all pomps and vanities!
Not mean will be your meed, I ken,
In Heaven's bright realms, ye rev'rend men!'

2.
"'And yet, they say, those tuneful throats,
With prayers' stem chaunt, mix softer notes;
Those mouths will sometimes deign to sip
The honey-dew from maiden's lip;
And other juice than salt tear dyes
With purpling hues those heavy eyes.
Ah, ah! twice blest your lot, I ken,
Here and hereafter, rev'rend men!'

* * * * *

"You have a small musical snuff-box with you. Mr. John Bull; wind it up, put it in your pocket, and try the effects of a polka or a waltz.

"All are silent in a moment. They start, stare, peer about the room, and look very much scared by the strange sounds. In another minute they will run away from us adepts in the black art. You see how many miracles could be got out of a few such simple contrivances as a grind-organ, an electrical machine, or a magic lantern. Now produce the cause of astonishment whilst I attempt to explain the mechanism of the invention. The sight of something soothes them; their minds become, comparatively speaking, quiet; still they handle the box with constraint, as if it had the power of stinging as well as singing. All are vociferous in praise of the music, probably on account of the curiosity of the thing, as a civilized audience applauds a sonata upon one string, at which it would yawn if performed upon four. Even the Minstrel declares with humble looks that the charm has fled his _Surando_, that his voice is become like to the crows. This, however, is his politeness, not his belief. In what part of the world, or at what epoch of the creation, did a painter, a musician, or a poet, ever own to himself that he is a dauber, a mar-music, or a poetaster?

"Ibrahim Khan will by no means refuse a 'dish a tea,' especially when offered to him during a short account of the Chinese Empire: the beardless state of the Celestials and the porcelain tower being topics which will at once rivet his attention. Orientals in their cups love to become inquisitive, scientific, theological, and metaphysical. But he qualifies the thin potation with quite an equal quantity of brandy, as in his heart of hearts he has compared the first sip to an infusion of senna disguised by sugar and milk. The Belochies, unlike their neighbours the Persians and Afghans, are not accustomed to the use of _Chahi_.[20]

* * * * *

"'Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur, listen! The meetings of this world are in the street of separation. And truly said the poet that the sweet draught of friendly union is ever followed by the bitter waters of parting. To-morrow we wander forth from these pleasant abodes, to return to Hyderabad. My friend, Jan Bool Sahib, is determined to feast his eyes upon the Edens of Larkhana and to dare the Jehannums of Shikarpur.'

"The Chief rises steadily, though intoxicated.

"'You are the King of the Franks. You are the best of the Nazarenes, and, by the blessed Prophet, you almost deserve to be a Moslem! Swear to me that you will presently return and gladden the glance of amity. What is life without the faces of those we love? Wah! wah! I have received you badly. There are no dancing-women in my villages. I would have seized a dozen of the ryots' wives, but Kakoo Mall said--didn't you, you scoundrel----?'

"'Certainly, great Chief!'

"'How can the Haiwans,[21] the Scindees, venture to show their blackened[22] faces in the presence of those exalted lords? If I have failed in anything, pardon me.'

"The tears stand in Ibrahim's eyes. No wonder. He has nearly finished six bottles. He grasps our hands at every comma; at every full stop vigorously embraces us. Yet he is not wholly maudlin. To water the tree of friendship, as he phrases it, he stuffs my cheroot-case into one pocket, and a wine-glass into the other. I must give him your musical box, Mr. Bull, and as an equivalent--I don't wish him to go home and laugh at our beards--I gently extract his best hunting-knife from his waistband and transfer it to my own, declaring that with that identical weapon will I cut the throat of a poetic image called Firak or Separation.

"Now the adieus become general. The minstrel raises his voice in fervent prayer; he has received five rupees and a bottle of bad gin. All the followers put their heads into the tent to bless us, and to see if we have anything more to give them. The Ameer, convinced that there are no more presents to be distributed, prepares to depart, accompanied by his secretary, when Hari Chand, determined upon a final scene, raises the tent-fly and precipitates himself into Kakoo Mall's arms."

[1] "The just king of Persia."

[2] "A diminutive and decidedly disrespectful form of the proper name."

[3] "A high title in Persia, terribly prostituted in Scinde and India."

[4] "The bird of wisdom in Europe, in Asia becomes the symbol of stupidity: _vice versâ_, the European goose is the Asiatic emblem of sageness."

[5] "A metaphor, by no means complimentary, for his house and home."

[6] "A first-rate Persian poet infinitely celebrated and popular for satire, morality, and gross indecency."

[7] "The polite address to one of the blood-royal."

[8] "An allusion to the boasted superiority of what is called Damascus steel over our Sheffield cutlery."

[9] "As we should say, 'What a bear-garden!' Two mullahs in one mosque are sure to fight."

[10] "One of the Rustam's great exploits was slaughtering the Divi Sapid, or White Demon--a personage, say the Persians, clearly typical of the modern Russians."

[11] "European ladies in general."

[12] "Four wives are allowed by law and religion, but if a man marries half a dozen or so, it is considered a peccadillo, not a felony."

[13] "Which, by-the-by, is borrowed from the Arab saying concerning the city of Wasit."

[14] "Bits of roast meat with onion between, fastened together with a skewer."

[15] "Fowls are considered impure in the extreme by high-caste Hindoos."

[16] "The wealthy nobles in Scinde generally support an establishment called Mehman-Khana (guest-house), in which they receive and entertain poor travellers and strangers."

[17] "To call a man 'beggar' does not sound polite in English, but it does in Scinde ears. An Oriental would generally prefer being under any kind of obligation to his superiors than lack connection with them."

[18] "A false prophet, _i.e._ an unsuccessful one, contemporary with Mohammed. The phrase is a classical one amongst the Moslems: it is much used when drawing odious comparisons between man and man."

[19] "Bhit is a small town lying to the eastward of Hyderabad. The word in Scinde literally means a 'heap,' and is applied to the place because the holy Abd el Latif ordered his followers to throw up a mound of earth as a foundation for the habitations of men. The holy subjects of the Ode, although his descendants, have quite lost reputation amongst the Bards, because they ungenerously appropriated the hoards entrusted to their charge by the wife of the dethroned Kalhora prince. Perhaps, being very wealthy, they are become, as might be expected, very niggardly, and that is another cause of offence."

[20] "Tea."

[21] "In Arabic, 'anything that hath life'--popularly used to signify a beast as opposed to a human being, or a human being that resembles a beast."

[22] "Blackened, _bien entendu_, by certain unquenchable flames."