The tone of melancholy defiance in which these words were uttered, went to LALLA ROOKн's heart; -and, as she reluctantly rode on, she could not help feeling it to be a sad but still sweet certainty, that FERAMORZ Was to the full as enamored and miserable as herself. - The place where they encamped that evening was the first delightful spot they had come to since they left Lahore. On one side of them was a grove full of small Hindoo temples, and planted with the most graceful trees of the East; where the tamarind, the cassia, and the silken plantains of Ceylon were mingled in rich contrast with the high fan-like foliage of the Palmyra, that favorite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire-flies.1 In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mangoe-trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red lotus; 2 while at a distance stood the ruins of a strange and awful-looking tower, which seemed old enough to have been the temple of some religion no longer known, and which spoke the voice of desolation in the midst of all that bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the wonder and conjectures of all. LALLA ROOKH guessed in vain, and the allpretending FADLADEEN, who had never till this journey been beyond the precincts of Delhi, was proceeding most learnedly to show that he knew nothing whatever about the matter, when one of the Ladies suggested that perhaps FERAMORZ could satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching his native 1 The Baya, or Indian Gross-beak. Sir W. Jones. 2 "Here is a large pagoda by a tank, on the water of which float multitudes of the beautiful red lotus: the flower is larger than that of the white water-lily, and is the most lovely of the nymphæas I have seen.”— Graham's Journal of a Residence in India. - Mrs. mountains, and this tower might perhaps be a relic of some of those dark superstitions, which had prevailed in that country before the light of Islam dawned upon it. The Chamberlain, who usually preferred his own ignorance to the best knowledge that any one else could give him, was by no means pleased with this officious reference; and the Princess, too, was about to interpose a faint word of objection; but before either of them could speak, a slave was despatched for FERAMORZ, who, in a very few minutes, made his appearance before them-looking so pale and unhappy in LALLA ROOKн's eyes, that she repented already of her cruelty in having so long excluded him. That venerable tower, he told them, was the remains of an ancient Fire Temple, built by those Ghebers or Persians of the old religion, who, many hundred years since, had fled hither from their Arab conquerors, preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or persecution in their own. It was impossible, he added, not to feel interested in the many glorious but unsuccessful struggles, which had been made by these original natives of Persia to cast off the yoke of their bigoted conquerors. Like their own Fire in the Burning Field at Bakou,2 when suppressed in one place, they had but broken out with fresh flame in another; and as a native of Cashmere, of that fair and Holy Valley, which had in the same manner become the prey of strangers,3 and seen her ancient shrines and native 1 "On les voit persécutés par les Khalifes se retirer dans les montagnes du Kerman: plusieurs choisirent pour retraite la Tartarie et la Chine: d'autres s'arrêtèrent sur les bords du Gange, à l'est de Delhi.". M. Anquetil, Mémoires de l'Académie, tom. xxxi. p. 346. 2 The "Ager ardens" described by Kempfer, Amanitat. Exot. 3 "Cashmere (say its historians) had its own princes 4000 years before its conquest by Akbar in 1585. Akbar would have found some difficulty to reduce this paradise of the Indies, situated as it is within such a fortress of princes swept away before the march of her intolerant invaders, he felt a sympathy, he owned, with the sufferings of the persecuted Ghebers, which every monument like this before them but tended more powerfully to awaken. It was the first time that FERAMORZ had ever ventured upon so much prose before FADLADEEN, and it may easily be conceived what effect such prose as this must have produced upon that most orthodox and most pagan-hating personage. He sat for some minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted conquerors!-sympathy with Fire-worshippers! " 1 -while FERAMORZ, happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, connected with the events of one of those struggles of the brave Fire-worshippers against their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too far advanced, he should have much pleasure in being allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible for LALLA ROOKH to refuse he had never before looked half so animated; and when he spoke of the Holy Valley, his eyes had sparkled, she thought, like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted; and while FADLADEEN sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story of the Fire-worshippers: mountains, but its monarch, Yusef-Khan, was basely betrayed by his Omrahs." - Pennant. 1 Voltaire tells us that, in his Tragedy "Les Guebres," he was generally supposed to have alluded to the Jansenists. I should not be surprised if this story of the Fire-worshippers were found capable of a similar doubleness of application. THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS. "Tis moonlight over OMAN'S SEA;1 Her banks of pearl and palmy isles Bask in the night-beam beauteously, And her blue waters sleep in smiles. Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell;- The music of the bulbul's nest, Or the light touch of lovers' lutes, To sing him to his golden rest. All hushed - there's not a breeze in motion; If zephyrs come, so light they come, Nor leaf is stirred nor wave is driven; The wind-tower on the EMIR's dome 4 Can hardly win a breath from heaven. 1 The Persian Gulf, sometimes so called, which separates the shores of Persia and Arabia. 2 The present Gombaroon, a town on the Persian side of the Gulf. 3 A Moorish instrument of music. "At Gombaroon and other places in Persia, they have towers for the purpose of catching the wind, and cooling the houses." Le Bruyn Ev'n he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps His race hath brought on IRAN's1 name. To carnage and the Koran given, Engraven on his reeking sword; 2. To which his blade, with searching art, Just ALLA! what must be thy look, When such a wretch before thee stands Unblushing, with thy Sacred Book, Turning the leaves with blood-stained hands, And wresting from its page sublime His creed of lust, and hate, and crime; - Which, from the sunniest flowers that glad "Iran is the true general name for the empire of Persia.” — Asiat. Res. Visc. 5. 2 "On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usually Inscribed."- Russel |