She saw ready passion, which often, like the young of the desertbird, is warmed into life by the eyes alone!* but one way to preserve herself from being culpable as well as unhappy, and this, however painful, she was resolved to adopt. FERAMORZ must no more be admitted to her presence. To have strayed so far into the dangerous labyrinth was wrong, but to linger in it, while the clue was yet in her hand, would be criminal. Though the heart she had to offer to the King of Bucharia might be cold and broken, it should at least be pure; and she must only endeavour to forget the short dream of happiness she had enjoyed, — like that Arabian shepherd, who, in wandering into the wilderness, caught a glimpse of the Gardens of Irim, and then lost them again for ever! † The arrival of the young Bride at Lahore was celebrated in the most enthusiastic manner. The Rajas and Omras in her train, who had kept at a certain distance during the journey, and never encamped nearer to the Princess than was strictly necessary for her safeguard, here rode in splendid cavalcade through the city, and distributed the most costly presents to the crowd. Engines were erected in all the squares, which cast forth showers of confectionary among the people; while the artisans, in chariots adorned with tinsel and flying streamers, exhibited the badges of their respective trades through the streets. Such brilliant displays of life and pageantry *"The Arabians believe that the ostriches hatch their young by only looking at them." P. VANSLEBE, Relat. d' Egypte. † See Sale's Koran, note, vol. i. p. 484. Oriental Tales. among the palaces, and domes, and gilded minarets of Lahore, made the city altogether like a place of enchantment; particularly on the day when LALLA ROокн set out again upon her journey, when she was accompanied to the gate by all the fairest and richest of the nobility, and rode along between ranks of beautiful boys and girls who kept waving over their heads plates of gold and silver flowers*, and then threw them around to be gathered by the populace. For many days after their departure from Lahore, a considerable degree of gloom hung over the whole party. LALLA ROOKH, who had intended to make illness her excuse for not admitting the young minstrel, as usual, to the pavilion, soon found that to feign indisposition was unnecessary; - FADLADEEN felt the loss of the good road they had hitherto travelled, and was very near cursing Jehan-Guire (of blessed memory!) for not having continued his delectable alley of trees †, at least as far as the mountains of Cashmere; while the Ladies, who had nothing now to do all day but to be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to FADLADEEN, seemed heartily weary * Ferishta. "Or rather," says Scott, upon the passage of Ferishta, from which this is taken, "small coins, stamped with the figure of a flower. They are still used in India to distribute in charity, and on occasion, thrown by the purse-bearers of the great among the populace. †The fine road made by the Emperor Jehan-Guire from Agra to Lahore, planted with trees on each side. This road is 250 leagues in length. It has "little pyramids or turrets," says Bernier, "erected every half league, to mark the ways, and frequent wells to afford drink to passengers, and to water the young trees." of the life they led, and, in spite of all the Great Chamberlain's criticisms, were so tasteless as to wish for the poet again. One evening, as they were proceeding to their place of rest for the night, the Princess, who, for the freer enjoyment of the air, had mounted her favorite Arabian palfrey, in passing by a small grove, heard the notes of a lute from within its leaves, and a voice, which she but too well knew, singing the following words TELL me not of joys above, If that world can give no bliss, Tell me not of Houris' eyes;- Who, that feels what love is here, Who, that midst a desert's heat Streams again as false as they? 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 enamoured 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 favourite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire-flies.* In the middle of the lawn where the pavillion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mangoe trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red lotus † ; 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 all-pretending 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 Baya, or Indian Gross-beak. Sir W. Jones. "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."-MRS. GRAHAM's Journal of a Residence in India. the Ladies suggested that perhaps FERAMORZ could satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching his native 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 ROOKH'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 †, when suppressed in one place, * "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. + The "Ager ardens" described by Kæmpfer, Amanitat. Exot. |