Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/310

 spent nine days with us, he departed for Benares. He is a great favourite at present, both with the king and the minister at Lucnow; and if he is allowed to retain the jagīr he now holds, upon the same terms for a few years, he will be a rich man. He deserves it all; we found him the same kind, mild, gentlemanly, polished, entertaining companion I have before described him. He was looking ill; but now that his fatigues are over, and he is once more at rest, he will soon recover. I requested him to inform me how native ladies amuse themselves within a zenāna, and he gave me the following account:—

"They have ponies to ride upon within the four walls of the zenāna grounds. Archery is a favourite amusement; my son, James Gardner, who is a very fine marksman, was taught by a woman.

"A silver swing is the great object of ambition; and it is the fashion to swing in the rains, when it is thought charming to come in dripping wet. The swings are hung between two high posts in the garden.

"Fashion is as much regarded by the Musulmāne ladies as by the English; they will not do this or that, because it is not the fashion.

"It is general amongst the higher and the middle classes of females in Hindostān to be able to read the Kuran in Arabic (it is not allowed to be translated), and the Commentary in Persian.

"The ladies are very fond of eating fresh whole roasted coffee. When a number of women are sitting on the ground, all eating the dry roasted coffee, the noise puts me in mind of a flock of sheep at the gram trough.

"The most correct hour for dinner is eleven or twelve at night: they smoke their hooq[)u]s all through the night, and sleep during the day.

"Nothing can exceed the quarrels that go on in the zenāna, or the complaints the begams make against each other. A common complaint is 'Such an one has been practising witchcraft against me.' If the husband make a present to one wife, even if it be only a basket of mangoes, he must make the same