misdeeds, and in he came, with a low salaam, and trembling from head to foot. The general was about to open the charges, when Khoda Buccas, who knew all about it beforehand, broke in upon him, and with the full energy of alarm and great volubility, entered clamorously on his defence. Mera kooch kussor muheen Kodabund (“No fault of mine, servant of the Lord, and protector of the poor"), but Bijlee Goorah (the horse Lightning), was sick (sick maun Hogeya),* and then the roan had lost her hind shoes, Gureeb-purwar. Here and there, all over the bazaar, your slave hunted for the blacksmith, and could not find him. At last your slave found him, and said 'Come quick and shoe Summon Gorah (the roan horse), for the lady will want the carriage, and her disposition is a little warm (misaj tora gurrum), and your slave will be beat and get into trouble;' and so he said to me, ' Brother,' said he, &c., &c., and so I was late."

This and a good deal more, as explained to me by Mrs. Delaval, was the rambling defence of Khoda Buccas, coachmaun. The old gentleman seemed disposed to admit its sufficiency; but madame peremptorily ordered off the unhappy charioteer, with the comfortable assurance that he should be flogged and dismissed. Oh tyranny, thou propensity of ungenerous souls! like Othello's love, thou growest with indulgence; till, like to every other evil, thou at last evokest the spirit that lays thee low!

66

Well, the storm at last having fairly subsided, the general hobbled to the couch, and took up a paper, as if glad for a season to retreat within himself. Mrs. Delaval and I carried on a conversation in an under-tone, whilst Mrs. Capsicum in silence digested her choler. At length, her equanimity somewhat restored, she thought proper to address me. "Is it long," said she, with some hauteur, " since ye came to Ingia ?" I told her that I had been in Calcutta about three weeks. "Ye are from my country, are ye not?" she continued; “I think the general told me you were Irish." Paternally I am so, madam," I replied; "but being English by birth, and my mother an English woman, I believe I have not much right to consider myself a Milesian. Nevertheless, we have generally identified ourselves with the sister kingdom." "That's right; for I'd scorn the man," said she bitterly, "that was ashamed of his country." Thought I, “Madam, you're not the person to make an Irishman particularly proud of it; and if you indulged the feeling in question, you might fairly reckon on its being reciprocal." "Are ye any thing," she continued, "to the Gernons of Crossmaballykilgrahan Castle, in the county Roscommon? Some of my family were extremely intimate with them." "We are from the same stock, madam; the relationship, however, is extremely remote. We are,” said I, somewhat proudly (for my Irish associations had led me to attach an undue importance to the figment of ancestry), "the top of the tree, though somewhat decayed, of which these are amongst the flourishing branches. We have a family tradition that King James's defeat at the Boyne convinced an ancestor of mine (an adherent of his) of the errors of popery (as it did many others); and though his conversion occurred rather suspiciously at that happy moment which enabled him to die 'Vicar of Bray,' it rather tended to alienate him and his descendants from those of his house who adhered to their ancestral faith." "Well, and so it ought. I'd spurn any connexion of mine that would change his holy religion," said this meek advocate of the faith. The general, who had been paying more attention to the conversation than we imagined, now laid down his paper and

* Sick maun, or sick man, one of the few phrases borrowed from the English, and applied to brutes, furniture, or any thing damaged or out of order.

eye-glass, and, with all the firmness of strong conviction, thus broke forth :The man that aither professes or taiches any thing which in his heart he does not believe for filthy lucre or worldly advantages, or even ties himself down irrevocably to taich that which subsequent thought and invistigation may shew him to be wrong, is a disgrace to humanity, a traitor to mind, and an inimy to his spacies. But if a man is sinsair, be he Mahommedan, Christian, or Hindoo, I take him to my heart, and believe there's room enough in heaven for us all." 'Do pray, ginrel," said Mrs. Capsicum, "attend to your paper, if ye plase, and allow me to continue my conversation without interruption."

The conversation was here checked by the entrance of a native servant, who, with closed hands, and in a manner profoundly respectful, said something in an under-tone to the beebee sahib. "Ginrel Capsicum," said Mrs. C., as the servant withdrew, "here is your son Augustus arrived." "Is he?” said the old general, jumping up and throwing down the paper; "faith, then, I'm glad of it, and ye haven't told me a pleasanter thing for a long time, my deer." These words were scarcely uttered, when a dark black-whiskered man, of a frank and ingenuous countenance, with a hunting-cap on his head, and a whip in his hand, entered the room, and running up to the old general and seizing his extended hand in both his own, in a manner which bespoke genuine warmth and affection, exclaimed: “How are you, Sir? quite recovered, I hope, from your last attack ?" "Well, my boy, well!" said the general, his eyes sparkling with pleasure as he measured his stalwart dark offspring from head to foot, as if in some doubt as to whether he could really be the sire of such a brawny chiel. "Well! and right glad to see you here; how did you come?" "Why, I left the factory early this morning, Sir," said Disgustus ;"" came on as far as the Budlampore ghaut in the pinnace; from that I drove the buggy down to the Thannah, and there I found Golaub in waiting; I rode him in here at a rattling pace, confounded hot work it was, though; and I expect I've rather taken the shine out of the Arab." "That's well," said the general; "and now be sated. Augustus, my young friend, Mr. Gernon; Mr. Gernon, my son, Mr. Augustus Capsicum." I bowed with English formality, but the hearty man of blue did not appear to understand that sort of thing, but came up and shook me by the hand; asked me if I was lately arrived, and said he was glad to see me. This was a pleasing trait, and shewed me the disposition of the man.

After some little conversation with his mother-in-law, with whom it was easy to perceive he was no particular favourite, and a lively chat with his lovely and generous-minded sister, who it was equally obvious loved her dark brother, in spite of the bend sinister in his escutcheon*, General Capsicum again addressed his son: "Well, Augustus," said he, "what are the prospects of the indigo this year? how does the blue look ?" "Oh, fair, Sir, very fair. If we have no further rise of the river, and get a few light showers, and the rain does not fall too long to wash the colour out of the plant, and this wind continues, we shall do very well this year. The price is well up, Rs. 300 a maund for the best, and I think we shall make 600. The plant looks beautiful on the Chuckergolly churs-at least it did till the Bobberygunge Talookdar's cows and buffaloes got into it. However, after all, I think we

In this country of high pressure morality, it may be right to explain that the same reluctance to mingle under one roof the children "legitimè procreati" with those less legally begotten, does not exist in India, where, unhappily, humanity and laxity flourish together, the reverse of what it should be, of course.

shall, on the whole, have a capital season.” "That's well," said the general. "Egad I think we'll see you go home with your plum, Augustus, yet.” “Home, Sir,” said Augustus, “I know of no home but India. Here I was born, and here, please God, I will die, however singular the determination." Tiffin was now announced, and we descended to the dining-room. Tiffin, or lunch, is in Bengal a delightful meal, suitable in its character to the climate, which renders the supererogatory one of dinner, particularly in the hot season, with its hecatombs of smoking meat and general superfluity of viands, often very much the reverse; the two or three recherché dishes of the first; the piquant curry, the delicate mango fish, and the savoury green geese (for which I had then a kindred affection), the light tarts, and other “ tiny kickshaws," blended with an array of tropical fruit. The guava, the custard apple, the mango, the leechee, and the loquot, constitute a tempting coup d'œil; and then how delightful the grateful bitter of the foaming ale, and the pleasant finale of the fragrant hookha, diffusing its incense around! Yes, India has, certainly, its happy moments, and I challenge all England to produce a pleasanter one than the social hour of tiffin.

The tiffin on the whole passed off very agreeably. Mrs. Delaval described society as it exists in the Madras presidency, and much she had seen and heard there. Augustus told us of a recent battle-royal, a sort of Bengallee Chevy chase, which had been fought between his followers and those of a neighbouring Zumeendar, by way of settling the right to some disputed beegahs of Indigo; in which many crowns were cracked and astonishing feats of chivalry displayed on both sides. The planter, however, had the candour to allow that he was at one time getting the worst of it, until timely succour, in the shape of a body of peons of a neighbouring French planter, with Monsieur Achille de la Chasse at the head of them, arrived, who, taking the enemy in flank and rear, soon restored the fortune of the day. This club-law, by the way, is or was not unfrequent amongst the indigo planters in India, a pretty plain proof of mal-administration or deficiency of the more legitimate kind of justice, men seldom resorting to the ordeal of battle when a more peaceable mode of settlement may be found. But the parts of his conversation which most delighted me, were the accounts he gave of sundry hog and buffalo hunts, and which, after deducting about 50 per cent. on account of embellishments-for sportsmen, like poets, must be allowed some considerable latitude in that way— were really very exciting. In fact, I told him I was dying to have a touch at the hogs and buffaloes myself, and that I hoped it would not be long before I fleshed my maiden spear on a few of the former. This looked rather like a fish for an invitation to the Junglesoor Factory, and I won't swear that I was wholly without design on the worthy indigo planter's hospitality in making the remark; whether he viewed it in this light or not, I cannot say, but he promptly said he should be happy to gratify my longing in that line, if I would go and spend a fortnight with him at his factory. I replied, " I should be delighted to accompany him, if I could obtain leave." "Oh," said he, "that difficulty can easily be overcome; my father, I dare say, will give you a note to a friend of his in the adjutant general's office, who'll procure you leave at once.” “I shall have a grate dale of pleasure in so doing," said the general; but, "Augustus, now, I intrate you, lade the young man into no scrapes; and don't let us hear of his being gored by a buffalo, or ate up by a tiger, or killed by some of them brutes of horses of yours." Oh, no," said Augustus, laughing and winking at "we'll take care of all that, Sir."

me,

THE SINDIBAD NAMAH.

ANALYTICAL ACCOUNT Of the sindIBAD NAMAH, OR BOOK of sindibad, A PERSIAN MS. POEM IN THE LIBRARY OF THE EAST-INDIA COMPANY.*

Ad historiam ingenii humani pertinere credo, scriptores omnis generis omniumque ætatum cognoscere.-Matthæi.

THE researches of Oriental scholars have, of late years, thrown considerable light on the origin of many of those fictions which have long enjoyed the popular favour in the West; and the farther the inquiry has been carried, the more convincing has become the evidence of their Eastern origin. It seems also to be now more generally admitted, that whatever nation may be entitled to claim the merit of inventing the apologue, it was in India that the idea was first conceived of a composition, in which, independently of its individual interest, the relation of every separate fable should be made subservient to. the moral purposes, and promote or retard, as occasion might require, the action of a tale, enforcing moral duties in regular sequence, and so constructed in its frame-work as to receive each subordinate narrative in its appropriate place.

One of the most successful specimens of this class, in point of popularity, is the Book of Sindibad—which must not be confounded, as it has sometimes been, with the tale of Sindbad the Sailor. This work has been translated, or, with various modifications, and under different names, re-produced, in several Eastern languages, and had at an early period found its way into some of the languages of Europe, whither it may have been first brought by the crusaders. It is mentioned so early as the tenth century by the celebrated historian Mas'udit as being then well-known, and as the work of an Indian philosopher named Sindibad. The version through which it was known in Mas'udi's time is not stated, but we may conclude that it was either Arabic or Persian. The Hebrew version of the same work, under the title of the Parables of Sindabar,‡ has been proved to date, at least, as far back as the end of the twelfth century.

Early in the thirteenth century, a Latin translation or imitation (made, it is conjectured, from the Hebrew) appeared, under the title of Historia Septem Sapientum Roma; its author was Dam Jehans, a monk of the Abbey of Haute Selve, in the diocese of Nancy.

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A Greek version, under the title of Syntipas, was executed by Andreopulus, a Christian, of whom nothing is known, but who in his prologue informs us, that he translated it from the Syriac. A brief notice in prose, following the prologue, states the work to have been originally written by Mousos, the Persian." This version was published from two manuscripts in the King's Library at Paris, by Boissonade (Paris, 1828), who considers it " very recent," but offers no precise conjecture as to its age. Dacier supposes this to have been the original of the Latin version; Loiseleur des Longchamps thinks it more probable that the Hebrew was so.

کتاب حکیم سندباد * مثنوي سندباد سندباد نامه نظام حکیم سندباد

are the different titles which appear on the volume.

and