In a large antechamber, spread with fine Chinese matting, on a brightcoloured Persian rug, and seated on his heels, we may imagine a finelooking Mohamedan of some forty years of age, the Moonshee, or native interpreter and writer of the chief civilian of the district. He wears a dress of white cotton, and a turban of fine muslin twisted round a Bokhara cap of red quilted silk worked with gold; his slippers of yellow cloth are by his side, as also his inkstand of Chinese lacquer. work, his paper scissors, and his coarse bladed knife. On his knees are several strips of yellow-looking native paper, on which he eagerly writes with a reed pen, describing Persian characters, and writing from the right hand to the left, muttering to himself as he does so, and labouring much in composition, for it happens that his master has directed him to write a letter of ceremony to a chief, and the moonshee works hard, therefore, to get up

"A fine specimen, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learned call rigmarole."

N. S. VOL. XXXV.

R

The object of the letter is to request an order for procuring camels for conveying treasure. But the first three sheets of paper must be filled with assurances of friendship, expressed in the most poetical and hyberbolic terms; of comparisons between the deeds of the ancestors of the chief and all the heroes of the Eastern world, with praises of his personal ancestry, the sun, moon, and stars. Now a good deal of imagery is required to do this well, but at last it is done; the fact of the camels is briefly added, gold-dust is sprinkled over the wet ink, the paper is carefully cut at the edges, and folded like a bookmarker, and then the house tailor is called, who proceeds to make one little bag of crimson satin worked with gold of the brocade called "Kinkaub," and another little bag of fine sprigged muslin, after which the letter is first placed in the satin bag, and then is shaded by the muslin envelope. A silk cord secures the mouth, and is fastened with a heavy seal, about the size of the stand of a wineglass. At this juncture a man starts up from the group that surrounds the moonshee, armed to the teethmatchlock, sword, dagger, pistols, powder-flask, kreeze, all are there -and if the messenger could but use all his glittering arms at once, a horde could not withstand him; but as it is, they are apt to prove better for show than service, and combined with the shield of rhinoceros hide, and the coat of quilted cotton, that would turn a musket-ball, they rather impede decided bravery; and this our friend knows full well, so that if a mounted marauder came with spear in rest too swiftly over the plain, our man of war, without a doubt, would trust to his spur rather than his sword. He had done so before, and lives to tell the tale; not of how he fled, however, but of how he fought and conquered these same "men in buckram." Now, however, with great zeal, he seizes the letter from the moonshee, raises it to his forehead, wraps it in a muslin scarf, and tucks it in his waistbelt; with a mighty clatter he then seeks his horse, that has been screaming and roaring as only an irregular horseman's ignoble steed can scream and roar, for the last hour, and clambering into the well stuffed saddle, the rider dashes through the gates at furious speed; but the moment the residency walls are hidden by the neighbouring gardens, the letter-bearer draws his rein, takes out his kaliun, and does his duty in a very easy, pleasant way.

Our moonshee meanwhile turns to other duties. As fast as they can be read he runs over petition after petition, in the Mahratta or Guzzarattee languages, his master, perhaps, writing to a friend all the while, about a tent, or a horse, or a pic-nic; and at the end the moonshee briefly explains one or two, and a letter is directed to be written a very ordinary letter, without gold-dust, or compliments, or brocade, or muslin bags, or large seals either-and the civilian signs it, and the moonshee smears the surface of a silver signet with Indian ink, and draws the end of the document across his tongue, and stamps the signet on the paper; and as he reaches the anteroom again, and seats himself upon his carpet, scores of people press round to gain his favour. Farmers engaged with boundary disputes, cultivators ques

tioning the right by which they are taxed, and others, all seeking earnestly the favour of the moonshee. With faces pressed against the window of the room are those whose claims are either not deemed important, or whose turn for being heard has not yet come. Among them are aged crones: young mothers, with their infant brood: a haughty, stern-looking, man of middle age, obstinate and perverse; a man who would rather thus wait from sunrise to sunset, day by day, than yield one tittle to his neighbour, or bear the encroachment of an inch upon his land-mark. And this man knows the value of the moonshee: the power that representation can give to a careless ear; he knows how petitions may be produced or evaded, how words or idioms may be brought in, not quite heard or understood, perhaps, by the weary listener: and the petitioner has proved his knowledge in many ways, and others with him, or the moonshee, on five pounds a month, would not possess shawls, and silver fire-cups to his kaliun, and a horse of blood and trappings worthy a chieftain's stud. No, no! as the civilian passes out to take his evening's drive, a hundred voices shriek aloud for justice; and many a poor oppressed but honest man runs behind, in the dust of his carriage-wheels, who, having no bribe to offer, has wasted all day, with this one hope, and will so wait to-morrow and to-morrow, till his heart breaks; but the wiser, richer pleader, satisfies himself with paying the homage of a low salaam, then turns back to chat with his friend the moonshee, and the chances are that another sunset sees him in his village a triumphant and contented man. Sheikh Ooluf-oo-deen was a person of no common ability, and perhaps, among all the moonshees of all the public offices in India, it would have been difficult to find a man who could erase a word so neatly, imitate the old writing of a deed of grant so perfectly, copy a signature so exactly, or take off the impression of a signet so cleverly (if worth his while), as Sheikh Ooluf-oo-deen.

But moonshees are of varions classes, not all so able or so influential as the individual described, and yet characters in their way. I knew one, Kurreem Khan, a Persian, for instance, who prided himself on his poetry, and knew nothing either of that, or of anything else in the world. It was his pleasure to wear the ancient Persian dress, consisting of a white turban, a muslin vest, and light blue body dress with hanging sleeves, lined with red and yellow chintz; he delighted in strolling about by moonlight, sitting at early dawn surrounded by the green blades of a field of damp jowarree (species of corn), and wrote execrable verses on all the commonplace incidents of his very uninteresting life. His days were passed in mingled idleness and ineffable self-conceit. With a pair of striped cashmere socks, and shagreen slippers from Cabool, with iron heels decorating his feet, he strolled about, reading his verses to every one he met, and refreshing his mind and body, at certain intervals, with larger quantities of pillau, curried bajee (spinach), and sweetened rice, than one would have thought it possible any "true believer" could have discussed with comfort.

Another moonshee, also a character in his way, might be classed as

the melancholy moonshee. He was very pale, and very thin, wore spectacles, and a tall black lambskin cap with a scarlet bag, according to the fashion of such things in Bokhara, and he was wiser than Kurreem Khan: he did not believe that an eclipse was caused by the sun and moon fighting together, nor was he sure that the earth was supported on the back of a tortoise, nor was he quite satisfied that the sun was obliging enough to go back under the earth every night, to be ready to rise in the east in the morning; he had doubts on these subjects, but he had no doubt of the tree in Mahomet's paradise, that blossoms twice a year with full suits of winter and summer dresses for the faithful; nor did he question that it was from the heat-drops that fell from the brow of Peer Mungul, that all the alligators sprung that abound in the tank near Kurrachee. These were his favourite matters of faith; beyond them he never speculated, but sat on the floor of the tent all day, with the gulistan on his lap, looking intensely miserable, and whenever news was told him, even of the most stirring kind, he would but ejaculate in slow and right dismal tones, "God is great!" and relapse into his previous state. I never saw Lootuj really cheerful till he got among the tombs at Tattah, a city of tombs in Lower Sindh, but when lounging about among them he became stimulated and communicative, told us how one was erected over the tooth of a mighty prince of the Talpur dynasty, how another was nightly guarded by a dervish in the form of a tiger, and so on, till in the end, having escaped being poisoned by snakes, or buried under a crumbling dome, or stung to death by wasps, all which were very likely to have happened, the melancholy moonshee was attacked by fever, and despatched by the earliest boat to the mouths of the Indus, an incident rather agreeable, perhaps, than otherwise, as miseries always seem to be a sort of comfort to dismal people. Then in our varieties one must not omit Zowkeram, the warrior moonshee! Poor Zowkeram! I know not if the better part of valour may have saved him in the Sindhian wars, but the banks of the Indus could not produce a more amusing character. He was a Hindoo, as his name informs us, Ram being a noted hero in their mythology; yet, being under a Mohammedan government, he adopted the Mohammedan costume, tied his body-coat on the left, instead of the right side, a very important distinction: and when he became excited, as he very often was, and passing wrathful, he would pour invective on invective against the individual object in such a torrent of words as no ear could follow, and end quite exhausted, with the powerful desire," May your father be burnt!" just as if he were a good Mohammedan, indulging his national antipathy to idol-worshippers and their ways, though everybody round knew perfectly well that Zowkeram's father himself had been burnt, and that at an expense of five hundred rupees, feasting, confectionary, and all, to the eternal honour of his loving family.

Zowkeram was more honest than most of his class: I doubt if he would have taken a bribe; but those who desired to oblige him were wont to make little cadeaux of matchlocks, particularly long in the

barrel; two-edged Arab swords; pistols to carry seven bullets and little matters of that sort; so that Zowkeram's armoury would have quite delighted Sir Samuel Merrick for the variety and rarity of its specimens. And his great delight was to be sent across the desert of Cutchee with orders to the governors of the towns at the foot of the Bolan Pass. From the moment the order was given, Zowkeram forgot every tittle of his learning. He forgot that he had ever learned to trace a Persian word to its Arabic root; that he had ever written letters to Dost Mahomed and the Khan at Khelat that in their several durbars had been considered marvellous specimens of rhetoric and penmanship; he forgot his talents for negotiation and political chicanery; he almost forgot how to abuse a Mohammedan, and thought only of the wars of Lanka, Devi's fights with the giants, and the horsemanship of Roostum. His white cotton dress was exchanged for a quilted body-coat of green cloth, lined with Manchester chintz, and edging the robe, as an English peer would use ermine. His Arab sword depended by cross-belts from his shoulder, his shield occupied the space between his horse and his turban, a pair of cavalry pistols protruded from his waist-shawl (the seven-barrelled weapon reposing in his bosom), and in his hand he carried an immensely long and keenly tipped spear. Boots of untanned sambur skin, broidered with coloured silks, reached above his knees, at the heels of which were a pair of racing spurs that had once won the day for the first Delhi jockey. Such was the outward aspect of the worthy Zowkeram when about to mingle with the illiterate desert hordes; but the inward man was not panoplied with courage, as the outward man with steel; war was his taste, not his nature; and, in strict confidence with the reader, it must be confessed that, perhaps, in all Hindostan there could not be found a greater coward at heart than worthy Zowkeram, the warrior moonshee. He rode forth through the deserts of Cutchee like one of the valiant, but it was because a band of irregular horsemen, a troop of cavalry, and some hundred sepoys, hedged him in on every side; and I strongly suspect that if his village had been made the object of a night attack by three cultivators determined to punish the grain-sellers for roguery, Zowkeram would have been the first to have rushed forth, Hindoo as he was, with a Koran on his head, and to shout Aman, Aman! (mercy, mercy!) He boasted much of his prowess, as all cowardly people do. He loved tiger-hunting, too, when he could sit snugly among the branches of a tree; and battue-shooting when he could be second in line behind a file of matchlocks. I well recollect a tiger-hunt with elephants, that formed the princely sport of Meer Alli Moorad; as part of the cortege, caracoling about the tents, none more brilliant, none more excited, none better armed, than Zowkeram, but the hunt once on foot, the moonshee was nowhere to be found. The tigress and her cubs were brought in slain, and a brief space afterwards, with drawn sword, unfolded turban, and face disfigured by many wounds, rushed up the moonshee; he had fought desperately, thrice had the tigress leaped on him from her covert, and