a temporary platform is erected, on which a watchman sits from dawn to eve, marking the coming of flights of parroquets and other destructive birds, while, as they wing their way over the field, he rends the air with cries, and a dozen slings, each with its smooth stone, are heard whizzing in the air, while the missive, skilfully directed, never fails of its mark. On the banks of Lake Munchor, in Sindh, I recollect seeing the Sindhian peasants killing wildducks by the same means; some of the horsemen who were our escort, regularly killed rock-pigeons with a sling and a stone as a provision for food, and sparrows also; such was their skill in the use of this ancient and simple weapon. It may be remarked also with reference to 1 Sam. xvii. 40, that the shepherds of the East always carry a staff which they hold in its centre, the object of its use not being as a support, but to beat bushes and low brushwood, into which the flocks stray, and where snakes and other reptiles abound.

In 1 Sam. xvii. 57, we read that the captain of the host took David, and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand.' I recollect being at a small town, near Dwaka, on the coast of Kattiawar, where much excitement had prevailed, in consequence of the daring violence committed by a Bharwutteeah chief, on whose head Government had set a price, but for many months he successfully evaded pursuit. At dawn one morning, however, my friend who commanded the detachment employed against the bandit was roused from his rest, and on going to the door of his tent a Wagherie (huntsman) unrolled a heavy waist-belt, and from it fell the gory head of the Bharwutteeah chief. In tracking hog, the man had come upon the robber's lair ; he shot him as he slept, then drawing his sword, ‘ cut off his head therewith,' and triumphantly brought the hideous trophy to the tent of his employer to claim his reward.

6

In 1 Sam. xviii. 4 we read, and Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David.' In the East this manner of showing regard or approval is still very general. I recollect a tiger-hunting party held by Meer Alli Moorad in Upper Sindh, where that chief sat on a small tower with his personal friends to see the sport ; a Sindhian behaved most valiantly, killing a tigress and her cubs, and the hero was brought up on the tower, when Meer Alli Moorad took from his neck a muslin scarf and bestowed it on the man, who felt himself distinguished above all honour and remunerated beyond all price. In ver. 7 we read 'And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.' The Mahratta women have a custom of thus answering each other in their songs, and the songs are usually triumphant records of the

E2

heroic

heroic deeds of Mahratta princes under the attacks of the Moslem Sovereigns of Delhi. I recollect riding late one evening at Ahmed-Nuggur, a fort of great interest in the annals of Mahratta warfare, when I observed, crossing the open plain from the old city, a line of Mahratta women, bearing water-vessels on their heads, not grouped, as is usually their habit, for the purposes of gossip, but advancing in a line, and, as they came, they chaunted in chorus the history of the Chand Bebee ke Nuggur, and as every fourth woman in the line ended a verse, the rest answered her in chorus, and thus they sung until the sounds of their triumph faded on the ear. In 2 Sam. xv. 1, we read that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him ;' this last portion of his retinue especially appertaining to royal state. His highness the Rao of Cutch, whenever he came to visit us from the palace of the city of Bhooj to our house in camp, came without pomp, without the elephants or camels bearing drums, horsemen, or any of the state of ceremony, but before his horse ran some fifty footmen, vociferating his titles as he came, and who, as he dismounted, gathered round, shouting Ram, Ram,' with one accord, and salaaming to the ground. The same number of footmen always preceded the son of the Nuwaub of Junaghir when he visited us, and the Chiefs of Rajpootana observed a similar etiquette to that 'prepared' by Absalom.

În 2 Sam. xv. 2, we read, And Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate.' On either side of the gates of eastern cities are guard-rooms, open to the street. Around the walls are suspended arms, shields, and matchlocks, and on the floor are spread small mats or rugs; on these sit persons concerned in the government of the affairs of the city, the Daroga, or chief magistrate, and others. Here foreign news is first brought. and the departing cossid, or messenger, is questioned, as with staff and sandals in hand, he rapidly seeks the gate, to depart upon his way; consequently, any man desiring popularity such as Absalom sought, would certainly plant himself on a spot so calculated for his purpose as the way of the gate.'

6

In 2 Sam. xviii. 24, it is written, And David sat between the two gates; and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold a man running alone.' This verse is very characteristic of the present manners of the people of the East. The gates of cities, as I remember those of Aurungabad, have generally guard-rooms on either side, as already described, and over the gate a chamber with an open window, to which steps from below communicate; this again, on either side, is open to the parapet, running from bastion to bastion of the walls. As David sat to hear news of Absalom,

Absalom, so would any chief in our day, who desired the latest intelligence. The watchman, in like manner, would ascend to the room above the gate, or to the flat roof above that, again to gaze forth in search of those who would bring tidings, and he who brought them would be a cossid or messenger, who, with a short staff in his hand, and his shoes bound in his girdle, would run swiftly, more swiftly over the bye ways of the East, and across its plains, intersected by deep nullahs or water channels, than could the horseman, compelled perhaps to a very circuitous route; and the fact is, that these foot messengers form a distinct class in the East, are accustomed to the employment of messengers from youth, and are able to evade observation on their journey. During my residence in Upper Sindh, at the period of the Caubool campaign, and the siege of Khelat, news was always brought by footmen running alone.' When fearing remark, these cossids would hide under the bastard cypress bushes of the desert, and the danger once past, they arose and swiftly pursued their way, when the watchman from the gates of Shikarpoor would see them and announce their coming, while the nearly exhausted man came and drew near, or a soldier would run forward and take the letter from him; or perhaps he had no missive, but came to tell that which he had seen, as was the case with us when a tribe of Murrees intercepted and cut up one of our detachments in the Murree Hills; and this man who came having seen our people fall and our officers slain, ran, and brought the news, hoping for a rich reward.

apace

We see in ver. 33, that the king' went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept.' I have already mentioned the chamber over the gate of Roza, at Aurungabad, and here I was told that the Emperor Aurungzebe was in the habit of sitting, either alone or with his favourite, Musafir Shah. This chamber window commanded a view of all the environs of the city, and when I looked from it across the wide plains to the distant mountains, over the gardens of waving palms, and around on the magnificent architectural remains of palaces, towers, and fountains, I readily imagined that from such a situation did the heart-stricken king of Israel mourn the news brought to him by those who' came apace' from the wood of Ephraim.'

In 1 Kings xviii. 5 we read, that Ahab said to Obadiah, 'Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts.' The governor so spoke, in consequence of the sore famine in Šamaria.' This affliction was the result of a lack of the usual moisture necessary to give fertility to the earth: there shall not

be

be dew nor rain these years,' was the decree of their great Creator. Samaria, like all the land of Syria, was subject to heavy dews, which as we see in Egypt, at the present day, supersede the necessity of that rain which in European countries is required to nourish the earth, and swell the seeds in her bosom, and therefore the Jews were stayed, when the mighty fiat went forth for the punishment of the rebellious people. But in India, these dews are uncommon, and if rain is withheld for two years, famine ensues, the earth refusing to yield her increase. I have been in countries grievously afflicted by such seasons, when the land, like that of Samaria, suffered from a famine that was sore indeed! This I witnessed both in Kattiawar and Cutch, neighbouring provinces. At the usual time when rain was expected, early in the month of June, the Rajputs of Cutch would consult their wise men, their seers, on the chances of rain; time passing, they would go in bands with Brahmins and music to the tanks and their adjoining temples, invoking Doorga in her form of Bhowani, the Hindu goddess of Fertility, and Vishnu, the Preserver, to aid them, and give rain to their rivers, and corn to their lands. But as the heavens remained clear, hope by degrees forsook the people: the wells dried, and then the Banian women with their water-vessels were constrained to seek the beds of the rivers or nullahs (watercourses) to raise from the little pools what water might remain, and these would soon fail. Then the wells over the few unfailing springs would be sealed and guarded, and women would walk, their water-vessels on their heads, and their little ones clinging to their garments, some miles to a distant spot near the hills to bring water to knead the cakes and fill the cruses, that stand each covered with its little earthen saucer by the door of a native house. Brahmins, availing themselves of the permission given in their books of ordinances, used sand instead of water for ablution; dry grain was eaten instead of kneaded cakes, and the cattle were driven in flocks to the banks of the drying brooks, where a little grass yet remained to afford them sustenance. But the second year (and I remember three that succeeded each other without rain, during my residence in Cutch) brought consequences yet more terrible; the price of grain placed it beyond the purchase of the poor, the brooks were no longer fringed with their little bright strip of verdure, the pools of the rivers were now but basins of dry sand, and famine in its hideous aspect stalked through the land. Mothers offered the infant children they could no longer feed for the price of a few measures of grain-families left the homes of their childhood to wander forth to seek food in a distant province, and in tottering weakness perished as they went. The bones of cattle lay bleaching in the parching sun; here and there a flight of crows

or

or a band of hungry dogs tore away the flesh of the poor bullock, who feebly sought the nullah, where it had been accustomed to find refreshment, and sunk, on the path, its dying eye vainly turned to implore forbearance from the carrion brood, hungering and thirsting for their horrible banquet. By degrees many died, some fled; the villages were deserted, and when once again the heavens opened, and the rain descended, and the floods came, I rode by and saw villages deserted, their oil-mills broken, their cottages fallen to ruin, their earthen water-vessels broken on the path, and the gaunt dogs, who rushed furiously forth, the only remains of life to be seen among those homes once surrounded with cheerful gardens, and echoing to the happy sounds of the grinder's song. In ver. 28 of this chapter we read of the priests of Baal, that they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed forth upon them.'

festival in honour of the goddess Kali (one of the forms of Doorga in her character of the Avenger), bands of fanatics, girded round the loins, and preceded by tomtoms, parade in native cities (where our government has not power to prevent it, as in that strong hold of Brahmanism, Nassick), and as they go, wound themselves with knives, the pain of which the actors are rendered insensible to, by the large quantities of bheng (prepared hempseed) and opium, commonly used by natives to dull nervous sensation; therefore, barbarous as the usages of the priests of Baal seem to have been, they were not more so than those of the worshippers of wood and stone in our time, of the deities, who sleep as 'Doorga' is said to do in preparation for her festival of the Dusserah, who journey, as according to Hindoo mythology Chrishna did from the groves of Vrij to Dwaka; who pursue, as did the elephant-headed son of Bhowani; or talk, as did the goddess, when she consoled the Monkey God, her favourite Huniman.

In ver. 44 we read of the coming of rain, after the seasons of great drought, and its described aspect is similar to that which I have marked with much surprise by the sea-coast in India. For days before the monsoon came on, the last season I was in Bombay, the air and sky was bright and calm as in the cold season, for not a cloud was to be seen, but suddenly a mighty wind shook the harsh leaves of the palms, and sounded through their plumed heads, as if blowing through metal tubes, and the people sang and blew trumpets in their temples, for they knew this sound was that of abundance of rain,' and preparations were at once made for it, by the people. Yet the sky was still bright, and the sun shone with its wonted splendour. A few days after this, a little cloud was seen in the west, so little that but for those who watched for it, it would have been wholly unobserved; and this increasing

became