Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/268

Rh winds in 1829 in the Doaab. It was the most awful and magnificent sight I ever witnessed: the whole earth seemed to be torn up into billows, as the vast clouds of dust, brought from the great desert, came rolling onwards, spreading darkness as they approached. The tempest lasted about an hour from its commencement, and I shall never forget the joyful sensation which I experienced when the tatties were removed, and we hastened into the verandah and breathed cool air, instead of the streams of gas which had been flowing outside the house for the last three months. Our two Persian cats actually rolled themselves in the wet, and walked through the puddles with the utmost complacency, and all the other animals seemed to derive new life from the refreshing change in the atmosphere.

I have been shewn in Bengal several temples whose founders were equally venerated by Hindoos and Moosaulmauns: the latter, who are natives of this province, are however esteemed a degenerate race, corrupted by the example of the idolaters around them. Still the tanks and