Part 30 (1/2)

I have some extracts from this voluminous work, translated for me by my husband, which interested me on account of the great similarity to our Scripture history; and if permitted at some future time, I propose offering them to the public in our own language, conceiving they may be as interesting to others as they have been to me.

The Persian and Arabic authors, I have remarked, subst.i.tute Y for J in Scripture names; for instance, Jacob and Joseph are p.r.o.nounced Yaacoob and Yeusuf.[15] They also differ from us in some names commencing with A, as in Abba, which they p.r.o.nounce Ubba (Father); for Amen, they say Aameen[16]

(the meaning strictly coinciding with ours); for Aaron, Aaroon; for Moses, Moosa.[17] I am told by those who are intimate with both languages, that there is a great similarity between the Hebrew and Arabic. The pa.s.sage in our Scripture 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabaethani,' was interpreted to me by an Arabic scholar, as it is rendered in that well-remembered verse in the English translation.

[1] _Sawari_.

[2] The Padshah Begam was the widow of Ghazi-ud-din Haidar, King of Oudh. On his death, in 1837, she contrived a plot to place his putative son, Munna Jan, on the throne. After a fierce struggle in the palace, the revolt was suppressed by the Resident, Colonel Low, and his a.s.sistants, Captains Paton and Shakespear. The pair were confined in the Chunar Fort till their deaths. See the graphic narrative by Gen. Sleeman (_Journey Through Oudh_, ii. 172 ff.); also H.C. Irwin (_The Garden of India_, 127 f.); Mrs. F. Parks (_Wanderings of a Pilgrim_, ii. 114).

[3] _Khawa.s.s_, 'distinguished': special attendants.

[4] _Mughlani_, a Moghul woman: an attendant in a zenana, a sempstress.

[5] _Kahani_.

[6] _Chausa, chhahsa_, not to be found in Platt's _Hindustani Dictionary_.

[7] The game of Pachisi, played on a cloth marked in squares: see _Bombay Gazetteer_, ix, part ii, 173.

[8] Gambling is one of the greater sins.--Sale, _Koran: Preliminary Discourse_, 89; Sells, _Faith of Islam_, 155.

[9] Fixed punkahs were introduced early in the nineteenth century.--Yule, _Hobson-Jobson_, 744.

[10] Firdausi, author of the Shahnama, died A.D. 1020 or 1025, aged 89 years. An abridged translation, to which reference is made, by J. Atkinson, was published in 1832. It has since been translated by A.G. and E. Warner (1905), and by A. Rogers (1907).

[11] Shaikh Sa'di, born at s.h.i.+raz A.D. 1175, died 1292, aged 120 lunar years. His chief works are the _Gulistan_ and the _Bostan_.

[12] Khwaja Hafiz, Shams-ud-din Muhammad, author of the Diwan Hafiz, died at s.h.i.+raz A.D. 1389, where his tomb at Musalla is the scene of pilgrimage; see E.G. Browne, _A Year amongst the Persians_, 280 f.

[13] _Gulistan_.

[14] See p. 77.

[15] Ya'qub, Yusuf.

[16] _Amin_.

[17] Harun, Musa.

LETTER XVIII

Evils attending a residence in India.--Frogs.--Flies.--Blains.-- Musquitoes.--The White Ant.--The Red Ant.--Their destructive habits.--A Tarantula.--Black Ants.--Locusts.--Superst.i.tion of the Natives upon their appearance.--The Tufaun, or Haundhie (tempest).--The rainy season.--Thunder and lightning.--Meteors.-- Earthquakes.--A city ruined by them.--Reverence of the Mussulmauns for saints.--p.r.i.c.kly heat.--Cholera Morbus.--Mode of Treatment.--Temperance the best remedy.--Recipe.

A residence in India, productive as it may be (to many) of pecuniary benefits, presents, however, a few inconveniences to Europeans independent of climate,--which, in the absence of more severe trials, frequently become a source of disquiet, until habit has reconciled, or reflection disposed the mind to receive the mixture of evil and good which is the common lot of man in every situation of life. I might moralise on the duty of intelligent beings suffering patiently those trials which human ingenuity cannot avert, even if this world's happiness were the only advantage to be gained; but when we reflect on the account we have to give hereafter, for every thought, word, or action, I am induced to believe, the well-regulated mind must view with dismay a retrospect of the past murmurings of which it has been guilty. But I must bring into view the trials of patience which our countrymen meet while in India, to those who have neither witnessed nor [Transcriber's note: illegible] them; many of them present slight, but living, op[Transcriber's note: illegible] those evils with which the Egyptians were visited for their impiety to Heaven.

Frogs, for instance, harmless as these creatures are in their nature, occasion no slight inconvenience to the inhabitants of India. They enter their house in great numbers and, without much care, would make their way to the beds, as they do to the chambers; the croaking during the rainy season is almost deafening, particularly towards the evening and during the night. Before the morning has well dawned, these creatures creep into every open doorway, and throughout the day secrete themselves under the edges of mattings and carpets, to the annoyance of those who have an antipathy to these unsightly looking creatures.

The myriads of flies which fill the rooms, and try the patience of every observer of nice order in an English establishment, may bear some likeness to the plague which was inflicted on Pharaoh and his people, as a punishment for their hardness of heart. The flies of India have a property not common to those of Europe, but very similar to the green fly of Spain: when bruised, they will raise a blister on the skin, and, I am told, are frequently made use of by medical gentlemen as a subst.i.tute for the Spanish fly.[1]

If but one wing or leg of a fly is by any accident dropped into the food of an individual, and swallowed, the consequence is an immediate irritation of the stomach, answering the purpose of a powerful emetic. At meals the flies are a pest, which most people say they abhor, knowing the consequences of an unlucky admission into the stomach of the smallest particle of the insect. Their numbers exceed all calculation; the table is actually darkened by the myriads, particularly in the season of the periodical rains. The Natives of India use muslin curtains suspended from the ceiling of their hall at meal times, which are made very full and long, so as to enclose the whole dinner party and exclude their tormentors.