Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XII

The Zeenah­nah.--Its in­te­ri­or de­scribed.--Fur­ni­ture, dec­ora­tions, &c.--The Pur­dah (cur­tains).--Bed­stead.--The Mus­nud (seat of hon­our).--Mir­rors and or­na­men­tal fur­ni­ture dis­used.--Dis­play on oc­ca­sions of fes­tiv­ity.--Ob­ser­va­tions on the Mus­sul­maun Ladies.--Hap­pi­ness in their state of seclu­sion.--Ori­gin of se­clud­ing fe­males by Mahu­mud.--Anec­dote.--Tamer­lane's com­mand pro­hibit­ing fe­males be­ing seen in pub­lic.--The Palan­keen.--Bear­ers.--Their gen­er­al util­ity and con­tent­ed­ness of dis­po­si­tion.--Habits pe­cu­liar to Mus­sul­maun Ladies.--Do­mes­tic ar­range­ments of a Zeenah­nah.--Din­ner and its ac­com­pa­ny­ing ob­ser­vances.--The Lota and Lug­guns.--The Hookha.--Fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the cus­toms adopt­ed in Zeenah­nahs.

Be­fore I in­tro­duce the ladies of a Mus­sul­maun zeenah­nah to your no­tice, I pro­pose giv­ing you a de­scrip­tion of their apart­ments.

Imag­ine to your­self a tol­er­ably sized quad­ran­gle, three sides of which is oc­cu­pied by hab­it­able build­ings, and the fourth by kitchens, of­fices, lum­ber rooms, &c.; leav­ing in the cen­tre an open court-​yard. The hab­it­able build­ings are raised a few steps from the court; a line of pil­lars forms the front of the build­ing, which has no up­per rooms; the roof is flat, and the sides and back with­out win­dows, or any aper­ture through which air can be re­ceived. The sides and back are mere­ly high walls form­ing an en­clo­sure, and the on­ly air is ad­mit­ted from the fronts of the dwelling-​place fac­ing the court-​yard. The apart­ments are di­vid­ed in­to long halls, the ex­treme cor­ners hav­ing small rooms or dark clos­ets pur­pose­ly built for the repos­ito­ry of valu­ables or stores; doors are fixed to these clos­ets, which are the on­ly places I have seen with them in a zeenah­nah or mahul[1] (house or palace oc­cu­pied by fe­males); the floor is ei­ther of beat­en earth, bricks, or stones; board­ed floors are not yet in­tro­duced.

As they have nei­ther doors nor win­dows to the halls, warmth or pri­va­cy is se­cured by means of thick wadded cur­tains, made to fit each open­ing be­tween the pil­lars. Some zeenah­nahs have two rows of pil­lars in the halls with wadded cur­tains to each, thus form­ing two dis­tinct halls, as oc­ca­sion may serve, or greater warmth be re­quired: this is a con­ve­nient ar­range­ment where the es­tab­lish­ment of ser­vants, slaves, &c., is ex­ten­sive.

The wadded cur­tains are called pur­dahs[2]; these are some­times made of woollen cloth, but more gen­er­al­ly of coarse cal­ico, of two colours, in patch­work style, striped, vandyked, or in some oth­er in­ge­nious­ly con­trived and or­na­ment­ed way, ac­cord­ing to their in­di­vid­ual taste.

Be­sides the pur­dahs, the open­ings be­tween the pil­lars have blinds neat­ly made of bam­boo strips, wove to­geth­er with coloured cords: these are called jhill­muns or cheeks.[3] Many of them are paint­ed green; oth­ers are more gaudy both in colour and va­ri­ety of pat­terns. These blinds con­sti­tute a re­al com­fort to ev­ery one in In­dia, as they ad­mit air when let down, and at the same time shut out flies and oth­er an­noy­ing in­sects; be­sides which the ex­treme glare is shad­ed by them,--a de­sir­able ob­ject to for­eign­ers in par­tic­ular.

The floors of the halls are first mat­ted with the coarse date-​leaf mat­ting of the coun­try, over which is spread shut­ter­inghies[4] (thick cot­ton car­pets, pe­cu­liar­ly the man­ufac­ture of the Up­per Provinces of In­dia, wove in stripes of blue and white, or shades of blue); a white cal­ico car­pet cov­ers the shut­ter­inghie, on which the fe­males take their seat.

The bed­steads of the fam­ily are placed, dur­ing the day, in lines at the back of the halls, to be moved at plea­sure to any cho­sen spot for the night's re­pose; of­ten in­to the open court­yard, for the ben­efit of the pure air. They are all formed on one prin­ci­ple, dif­fer­ing on­ly in size and qual­ity; they stand about half-​a-​yard from the floor, the legs round and broad at bot­tom, nar­row­ing as they rise to­wards the frame, which is laced over with a thick cot­ton tape, made for the pur­pose, and plat­ted in chec­quers, and thus ren­dered soft, or rather elas­tic, and very pleas­ant to re­cline up­on. The legs of these bed­steads are in some in­stances gold, sil­ver gilt, or pure sil­ver; oth­ers have enam­el paint­ings on fine wood; the in­fe­ri­or grades have them mere­ly of wood paint­ed plain and var­nished; the ser­vants' bed­steads are of the com­mon man­go-​wood with­out or­na­ment, the lac­ing of these for the sack­ing be­ing of elas­tic string man­ufac­tured from the fi­bre of the co­coa-​nut.

Such are the bed­steads of ev­ery class of peo­ple. They sel­dom have mat­tress­es; a soo­ji­nee[5] (white quilt) is spread on the lac­ing, over which a cal­ico sheet, tied at each cor­ner of the bed­stead with cords and tas­sels; sev­er­al thin flat pil­lows of beat­en cot­ton for the head,--a muslin sheet for warm weath­er, and a well wadded ruzzie[6] (cov­er­lid) for win­ter, is all these chil­dren of Na­ture deem es­sen­tial to their com­fort in the way of sleep­ing. They have no idea of night dress­es; the same suit that adorns a la­dy, is re­tained both night and day, un­til a change be need­ed. The sin­gle ar­ti­cle ex­changed at night is the deput­tah,[7] and that on­ly when it hap­pens to be of sil­ver tis­sue or em­broi­dery, for which a muslin or cal­ico sheet is sub­sti­tut­ed.

The very high­est cir­cles have the same habits in com­mon with the mean­est, but those who can af­ford shawls of cash­mere pre­fer them for sleep­ing in, when the cold weath­er ren­ders them bear­able. Blan­kets are nev­er used ex­cept by the poor­est peas­antry, who wear them in lieu of bet­ter gar­ments night and day in the win­ter sea­son: they are al­ways black, the nat­ural colour of the wool. The ruzzies of the high­er or­ders are gen­er­al­ly made of silk of the bright­est hues, well wadded, and lined with dyed muslin of as­sim­ilat­ing colour; they are usu­al­ly bound with broad sil­ver ribands, and some­times bor­dered with gold bro­cad­ed trim­mings. The mid­dling class­es have fine chintz ruzzies, and the ser­vants and slaves coarse ones of the same ma­te­ri­al; but all are on the same plan, whether for a queen or the mean­est of her slaves, dif­fer­ing on­ly in the qual­ity of the ma­te­ri­al.

The mis­tress of the house is eas­ily dis­tin­guished by her seat of hon­our in the hall of a zeenah­nah; a mus­nud[8] not be­ing al­lowed to any oth­er per­son but the la­dy of the man­sion.

The mus­nud car­pet is spread on the floor if pos­si­ble near to a pil­lar about the cen­tre of the hall, and is made of many va­ri­eties of fab­ric,--gold cloth, quilt­ed silk, bro­cad­ed silk, vel­vet, fine chintz, or what­ev­er may suit the la­dy's taste, cir­cum­stances, or con­ve­nience. It is about two yards square, and gen­er­al­ly bor­dered or fringed, on which is placed the all-​im­por­tant mus­nud. This ar­ti­cle may be un­der­stood by those who have seen a lace-​mak­er's pil­low in Eng­land, ex­cept­ing on­ly that the mus­nud is about twen­ty times the size of that use­ful lit­tle ar­ti­cle in the hands of our in­dus­tri­ous vil­lagers. The mus­nud is cov­ered with gold cloth, silk, vel­vet, or cal­ico, with square pil­lows to cor­re­spond, for the el­bows, the knees, &c. This is the seat of hon­our, to be in­vit­ed to share which, with the la­dy-​own­er, is a mark of favour to an equal or in­fe­ri­or: when a su­pe­ri­or pays a vis­it of hon­our, the prid­ed seat is usu­al­ly sur­ren­dered to her, and the la­dy of the house takes her place most humbly on the very edge of her own car­pet.

Look­ing-​glass­es or or­na­men­tal fur­ni­ture are very rarely to be seen in the zeenah­nahs, even of the very rich­est fe­males. Chairs and so­fas are pro­duced when En­glish vis­itors are ex­pect­ed; but the ladies of Hin­doost­aun pre­fer the usu­al mode of sit­ting and loung­ing on the car­pet; and as for ta­bles, I sup­pose not one gen­tle­wom­an of the whole coun­try has ev­er been seat­ed at one; and very few, per­haps, have any idea of their use­ful pur­pos­es, all their meals be­ing served on the floor, where dusthakhawns[9] (ta­ble-​cloths we should call them) are spread, but nei­ther knives, forks, spoons, glass­es, or nap­kins, so es­sen­tial to the com­fort­able en­joy­ment of a meal amongst Eu­ro­peans. But those who nev­er knew such com­forts have no de­sire for the in­dul­gence, nor taste to ap­pre­ci­ate them.

On the sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, amongst Na­tive so­ci­ety, of as­sem­bling in large par­ties, as at births and mar­riages, the halls, al­though ex­ten­sive, would be in­ad­equate to ac­com­mo­date the whole par­ty. They then have awnings of white cal­ico, neat­ly flounced with muslin, sup­port­ed on poles fixed in the court­yard, and con­nect­ing the open space with the great hall, by wood­en plat­forms which are brought to a line with the build­ing, and cov­ered with shut­ter­inghie and white car­pets to cor­re­spond with the floor-​fur­ni­ture of the hall; and here the ladies sit by day and sleep by night very com­fort­ably, with­out feel­ing any great in­con­ve­nience from the ab­sence of their bed­steads, which could nev­er be ar­ranged for the ac­com­mo­da­tion of so large an as­sem­blage--nor is it ev­er ex­pect­ed.

The usu­al­ly bar­ren look of these al­most un­fur­nished halls is on such oc­ca­sions quite changed, when the ladies are as­sem­bled in their var­ious dress­es; the bril­liant dis­play of jew­els, the glit­ter­ing drap­ery of their dress, the var­ious ex­pres­sions of coun­te­nance, and dif­fer­ent fig­ures, the mul­ti­tude of fe­male at­ten­dants and slaves, the chil­dren of all ages and sizes in their var­ious­ly or­na­ment­ed dress­es, are sub­jects to at­tract both the eye and the mind of an ob­serv­ing vis­itor; and the hall, which when emp­ty ap­peared des­olate and com­fort­less, thus filled, leaves noth­ing want­ing to ren­der the scene at­trac­tive.

The buzz of hu­man voic­es, the hap­py play­ful­ness of the chil­dren, the chaste singing of the dome­nies fill up the an­imat­ed pic­ture. I have some­times passed an hour or two in wit­ness­ing their in­no­cent amuse­ments, with­out any feel­ing of re­gret for the brief sac­ri­fice of time I had made. I am free to con­fess, how­ev­er, that I have re­turned to my tran­quil home with in­creased de­light af­ter hav­ing wit­nessed the bus­tle of a zeenah­nah as­sem­bly. At first I pitied the ap­par­ent monotony of their lives; but this feel­ing has worn away by in­ti­ma­cy with the peo­ple, who are thus pre­clud­ed from mix­ing gen­er­al­ly with the world. They are hap­py in their con­fine­ment; and nev­er hav­ing felt the sweets of lib­er­ty, would not know how to use the boon if it were to be grant­ed them. As the bird from the nest im­mured in a cage is both cheer­ful and con­tent­ed, so are these fe­males. They have not, it is true, many in­tel­lec­tu­al re­sources, but they have nat­ural­ly good un­der­stand­ings, and hav­ing learned their du­ty they strive to ful­fil it. So far as I have had any op­por­tu­ni­ty of mak­ing per­son­al ob­ser­va­tions on their gen­er­al char­ac­ter they ap­pear to me obe­di­ent wives, du­ti­ful daugh­ters, af­fec­tion­ate moth­ers, kind mis­tress­es, sin­cere friends, and lib­er­al bene­fac­tress­es to the dis­tressed poor. These are their moral qual­ifi­ca­tions, and in their re­li­gious du­ties they are zeal­ous in per­form­ing the sev­er­al or­di­nances which they have been in­struct­ed by their par­ents or hus­bands to ob­serve. If there be any mer­it in obey­ing the in­junc­tions of their Law­giv­er, those whom I have known most in­ti­mate­ly de­serve praise, since 'they are faith­ful in that they pro­fess'.

To ladies ac­cus­tomed from in­fan­cy to con­fine­ment this is by no means irk­some; they have their em­ploy­ments and their amuse­ments, and though these are not ex­act­ly to our taste, nor suit­ed to our mode of ed­uca­tion, they are not the less rel­ished by those for whom they were in­vent­ed. They per­haps won­der equal­ly at some of our modes of dis­si­pat­ing time, and fan­cy we might spend it more prof­itably. Be that as it may, the Mus­sul­maun ladies, with whom I have been long in­ti­mate, ap­pear to me al­ways hap­py, con­tent­ed, and sat­is­fied with the seclu­sion to which they were born; they de­sire no oth­er, and I have ceased to re­gret they can­not be made par­tak­ers of that free­dom of in­ter­course with the world we deem so es­sen­tial to our hap­pi­ness, since their health suf­fers noth­ing from that con­fine­ment, by which they are pre­served from a va­ri­ety of snares and temp­ta­tions; be­sides which, they would deem it dis­grace­ful in the high­est de­gree to mix in­dis­crim­inate­ly with men who are not re­la­tions. They are ed­ucat­ed from in­fan­cy for re­tire­ment, and they can have no wish that the cus­tom should be changed, which keeps them apart from the so­ci­ety of men who are not very near­ly re­lat­ed to them. Fe­male so­ci­ety is un­lim­it­ed, and that they en­joy with­out re­straint.

A la­dy whose friend­ship I have en­joyed from my first ar­rival in In­dia, heard me very of­ten speak of the dif­fer­ent places I had vis­it­ed, and she fan­cied her hap­pi­ness very much de­pend­ed on see­ing a riv­er and a bridge. I un­der­took to gain per­mis­sion from her hus­band and fa­ther, that the treat might be per­mit­ted; they, how­ev­er, did not ap­prove of the la­dy be­ing grat­ified, and I was vexed to be obliged to con­vey the dis­ap­point­ment to my friend. She very mild­ly an­swered me, 'I was much to blame to re­quest what I knew was im­prop­er for me to be in­dulged in; I hope my hus­band and fam­ily will not be dis­pleased with me for my child­ish wish; pray make them un­der­stand how much I re­pent of my fol­ly. I shall be ashamed to speak on the sub­ject when we meet.'

I was anx­ious to find out the ori­gin of se­clud­ing fe­males in the Mus­sul­maun so­ci­eties of Hin­doost­aun, as I could find no ex­am­ple in the Mo­sa­ic law, which ap­pears to have been the pat­tern Muhu­mud fol­lowed gen­er­al­ly in do­mes­tic habits. I am told by the best pos­si­ble au­thor­ity, that the first step to­wards the seclu­sion of fe­males oc­curred in the life of Mahu­mud, by whose com­mand the face and fig­ure of wom­en were veiled on their go­ing from home, in con­se­quence of some de­par­ture from strict pro­pri­ety in one of his wives (Ayashur,[10] the daugh­ter of Omir); she is rep­re­sent­ed to have been a very beau­ti­ful wom­an, and was trav­el­ling with Mahu­mud on a jour­ney in Ara­bia.

'The beau­ti­ful Ayashur, on her camel, was sep­arat­ed from the par­ty; she ar­rived at the serai (inn, or halt­ing-​place) sev­er­al hours af­ter they had en­camped, and de­clared that her de­lay was oc­ca­sioned by the loss of a sil­ver ban­gle from her an­kle, which af­ter some trou­ble she had dis­cov­ered, and which she pro­duced in a bruised state in tes­ti­mo­ny of her as­ser­tion. Mahu­mud was dis­pleased, and her fa­ther en­raged be­yond mea­sure at his daugh­ter's ex­pos­ing her­self to the cen­sure of the pub­lic, by al­low­ing any thing to de­tach her from the par­ty.' Mahu­mud as­suaged Omir's anger by a com­mand then first is­sued, 'That all fe­males, be­long­ing to the faith­ful, should be com­pelled to wear a close veil over their face and fig­ure when­ev­er they went abroad.'

In Ara­bia and Per­sia the fe­males are al­lowed to walk or ride out with a sort of hood­ed cloak, which falls over the face, and has two eye-​holes for the pur­pose of see­ing their way.[11] They are to be met with in the streets of those coun­tries with­out a sus­pi­cion of im­pro­pri­ety when thus habit­ed.

The habit of strict seclu­sion, how­ev­er, orig­inat­ed in Hin­doost­aun with Tamer­lane the con­queror of In­dia.

When Tamer­lane[12] with his pow­er­ful army en­tered In­dia, he is­sued a procla­ma­tion to all his fol­low­ers to the fol­low­ing pur­port, 'As they were now in the land of idol­atry and amongst a strange peo­ple, the fe­males of their fam­ilies should be strict­ly con­cealed from the view of strangers'; and Tamer­lane him­self in­vent­ed the sev­er­al cov­ered con­veyances which are to the present pe­ri­od of the Mus­sul­maun his­to­ry in use, suit­ed to each grade of fe­male rank in so­ci­ety. And the bet­ter to se­cure them from all pos­si­bil­ity of con­tam­ina­tion by their new neigh­bours, he com­mand­ed that they should be con­fined to their own apart­ments and be­hind the pur­dah, dis­al­low­ing any in­ter­course with males of their own per­sua­sion even, who were not re­lat­ed by the near­est ties, and mak­ing it a crime in any fe­male who should will­ing­ly suf­fer her per­son to be seen by men out of the pre­scribed lim­its of con­san­guin­ity.

Tamer­lane, it may be pre­sumed, was then ig­no­rant of the re­li­gious prin­ci­ples of the Hin­doos. They are strict­ly for­bid­den to have in­ter­course or in­ter­mar­ry with fe­males who are not strict­ly of their own caste or tribe, un­der the se­vere penal­ty of los­ing that caste which they val­ue as their life. To this may be at­tribut­ed, in a great de­gree, the safe­ty with which fe­male for­eign­ers trav­el daak[13] (post) in their palan­keens, from one point of the In­di­an con­ti­nent to an­oth­er, with­out the knowl­edge of five words of the Hin­doost­au­nie tongue, and with no oth­er ser­vant or guardian but the daak-​bear­ers, who car­ry them at the rate of four miles an hour, trav­el­ling day and night suc­ces­sive­ly.

The palan­keen is sup­port­ed on the shoul­ders of four bear­ers at once,--two hav­ing the front pole at­tached to the ve­hi­cle, and two sup­port­ing the pole be­hind. The four bear­ers are re­lieved ev­ery five or six min­utes by oth­er four, mak­ing the set of eight to each palan­keen,--this set con­veys their bur­den from eight to ten miles, where a fresh par­ty are in wait­ing to re­lieve them, and so on to the ex­tent of the pro­ject­ed jour­ney; much in the same way as re­lays of hors­es are sta­tioned for post-​trav­el­ling in Eng­land. Per­haps the tract of coun­try passed through may not present a sin­gle hut or habi­ta­tion for miles to­geth­er, of­ten through jun­gles of gloomy as­pect; yet with all these ob­sta­cles, which would ex­cite fear or dis­trust in more civ­ilized parts of the world, fe­males trav­el in In­dia with as per­fect se­cu­ri­ty from in­sult as if they were guard­ed by a com­pa­ny of se­poys, or a troop of cav­al­ry.

I am dis­posed to think that the in­ven­tion of cov­ered con­veyances by Tamer­lane first gave rise to the bear­ers. It seems so prob­able that the con­queror of the Hin­doos should have been the first to de­grade hu­man na­ture, by com­pelling them to bear the bur­den of their fel­low-​crea­tures. I can nev­er for­get the first im­pres­sion, on my mind, when wit­ness­ing this mode of con­veyance on my land­ing at Cal­cut­ta; and al­though I am will­ing to agree that the mea­sure is one of vast util­ity in this cli­mate, and to ac­knowl­edge with grat­itude the ben­efit I have de­rived by this per­son­al con­ve­nience, yet I nev­er seat my­self in the palan­keen or thon­jaun[14] with­out a feel­ing bor­der­ing on self-​re­proach, as be­ing one amongst the num­ber to per­pet­uate the degra­da­tion of my fel­low-​mor­tals. They, how­ev­er, feel noth­ing of this sen­ti­ment them­selves, for they are trained from boy­hood to the toil, as the young ox to the yoke. It is their busi­ness; the means of com­fort is de­rived to them by this ser­vice; they are hap­py in the em­ploy­ment, and gen­er­al­ly cheer­ful, and form a class of peo­ple in them­selves re­spect­ed by ev­ery oth­er both for their ser­vices and for their gen­er­al good be­haviour. In the hous­es of for­eign­ers they are the most use­ful amongst the whole es­tab­lish­ment; they have charge of prop­er­ty, keep the fur­ni­ture in ex­act or­der, pre­pare the beds, the lamps, and the can­dles, where wax is used. Tal­low hav­ing beef-​fat in its man­ufac­ture is an abom­ina­tion, to the Hin­doos, by whom it is con­sid­ered un­holy to slay, or even to touch any por­tion of the slaugh­tered cat­tle of their re­spect: for be­liev­ing in trans­mi­gra­tion, they af­firm that these an­imals re­ceive the souls of their de­part­ed re­la­tions. The bear­ers make the best of nurs­es to chil­dren, and con­tribute to the com­fort of their em­ploy­er by pulling the punkah night and day: in short, so nec­es­sary are these ser­vants to the do­mes­tic econ­omy of so­journ­ers in the East, that their mer­its as a peo­ple must be a con­tin­ual theme of praise; for I know not how an En­glish es­tab­lish­ment could be con­clud­ed with any de­gree of com­fort with­out these most use­ful do­mes­tics. But I have al­lowed my pen to stray from the sub­ject of fe­male seclu­sion, and will here bring that part of my his­to­ry to a close in very few words.

Those fe­males who rank above peas­ants or in­fe­ri­or ser­vants, are dis­posed from prin­ci­ple to keep them­selves strict­ly from ob­ser­va­tion; all who have any re­gard for the char­ac­ter or the hon­our of their house, se­clude them­selves from the eye of strangers, care­ful­ly in­struct­ing their young daugh­ters to a rigid ob­ser­vance of their own pru­dent ex­am­ple. Lit­tle girls, when four years old, are kept strict­ly be­hind the pur­dah, and when they move abroad it is al­ways in cov­ered con­veyances, and un­der the guardian­ship of a faith­ful fe­male do­mes­tic, who is equal­ly tena­cious us the moth­er to pre­serve the young la­dy's rep­uta­tion un­blem­ished by con­ceal­ing her from the gaze of men.

The ladies of zeenah­nah life are not re­strict­ed from the so­ci­ety of their own sex; they are, as I have be­fore re­marked, ex­trav­agant­ly fond of com­pa­ny, and equal­ly as hos­pitable when en­ter­tain­ers. To be alone is a tri­al to which they are sel­dom ex­posed, ev­ery la­dy hav­ing com­pan­ions amongst her de­pen­dants; and ac­cord­ing to her means the num­ber in her es­tab­lish­ment is reg­ulat­ed. Some ladies of rank have from two to ten com­pan­ions, in­de­pen­dent of slaves and do­mes­tics; and there are some of the Roy­al fam­ily at Luc­know who en­ter­tain in their ser­vice two or three hun­dred fe­male de­pen­dants, of all class­es. A well-​filled zeenah­nah is a mark of gen­til­ity; and even the poor­est la­dy in the coun­try will re­tain a num­ber of slaves and do­mes­tics, if she can­not af­ford com­pan­ions; be­sides which they are mis­er­able with­out so­ci­ety, the habit of as­so­ci­at­ing with num­bers hav­ing grown up with in­fan­cy to ma­tu­ri­ty: 'to be alone' is con­sid­ered, with wom­en thus sit­uat­ed, a re­al calami­ty.

On oc­ca­sions of as­sem­bling in large par­ties, each la­dy takes with her a com­pan­ion be­sides two or three slaves to at­tend up­on her, no one ex­pect­ing to be served by the ser­vants of the house at which they are vis­it­ing. This swells the num­bers to be pro­vid­ed for; and as the vis­it is al­ways for three days and three nights (ex­cept on Eades, when the vis­it is con­fined to one day), some fore­thought must be ex­er­cised by the la­dy of the house, that all may be ac­com­mo­dat­ed in such a man­ner as may se­cure to her the rep­uta­tion of hos­pi­tal­ity.

The kitchen and of­fices to the zeenah­nah, I have re­marked, oc­cu­py one side of the quad­ran­gle; they face the great or cen­tre hall ap­pro­pri­at­ed to the as­sem­bly. These kitchens, how­ev­er, are suf­fi­cient­ly dis­tant to pre­vent any great an­noy­ance from the smoke;--I say smoke, be­cause chim­neys have not yet been in­tro­duced in­to the kitchens of the Na­tives. The fire-​places are all on the ground, some­thing re­sem­bling stoves, each ad­mit­ting one saucepan, the Asi­as­tic style of cook­ing re­quir­ing no oth­er con­trivance. Roast or boiled joints are nev­er seen at the din­ner of a Na­tive: a leg of mut­ton or sir­loin of beef would place the host­ess un­der all sorts of dif­fi­cul­ties, where knives and forks are not un­der­stood to be amongst the use­ful ap­pendages of a meal. The va­ri­ety of their dish­es are count­less, but stews and cur­ries are the chief; all the oth­ers are mere va­ri­eties. The on­ly thing in the shape of roast meats, are small lean cut­lets bruised, sea­soned and ce­ment­ed with pound­ed pop­py-​seed, sev­er­al be­ing fas­tened to­geth­er on skew­ers: they are grilled or roast­ed over a char­coal fire spread on the ground, and then called kee­baab,[15] which word im­plies, roast meat.

The kitchen of a zeenah­nah would be in­ad­equate to the busi­ness of cook­ing for a large as­sem­bly; the most choice dish­es on­ly (for the high­ly favoured guests), are cooked by the ser­vants of the es­tab­lish­ment. The need­ed abun­dance re­quired on en­ter­tain­ing a large par­ty is pro­vid­ed by a reg­ular bazaar cook, sev­er­al of whom es­tab­lish them­selves in Na­tive cities, or wher­ev­er there is a Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion. Or­ders be­ing pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en, the morn­ing and evening din­ners are punc­tu­al­ly for­ward­ed at the ap­point­ed hours in cov­ered trays, each tray hav­ing por­tions of the sev­er­al good things or­dered, so that there is no con­fu­sion in serv­ing out the feast on its ar­rival at the man­sion. The food thus pre­pared by the bazaar cook (naun­bye,[16] he is called), is plain boiled-​rice, sweet-​rice, kheer[17] (rice-​milk), mau­tun­gun[18] (rice sweet­ened with the ad­di­tion of pre­served fruits, raisins, &c., coloured with saf­fron), sal­lons[19] (cur­ries) of many va­ri­eties, some cooked with veg­eta­bles, oth­ers with un­ripe fruits with or with­out meat; pil­laus of many sorts, kee­baabs, pre­serves, pick­les, chat­nees, and many oth­er things too te­dious to ad­mit of de­tail.

The bread in gen­er­al use amongst Na­tives is chiefly un­leav­ened; noth­ing in the like­ness of En­glish bread is to be seen at their meals; and many ob­ject to its be­ing fer­ment­ed with the in­tox­icat­ing tod­dy (ex­tract­ed from a tree). Most of the Na­tive bread is baked on iron plates over a char­coal fire. They have many va­ri­eties, both plain and rich, and some of the lat­ter re­sem­bles our pas­try, both in qual­ity and flavour.

The din­ners, I have said, are brought in­to the zeenah­nah ready dished in the Na­tive earth­en­ware, on trays; and as they nei­ther use spoons or forks, there is no great de­lay in set­ting out the meal where noth­ing is re­quired for dis­play or ef­fect, be­yond the ex­cel­lent qual­ity of the food and its be­ing well cooked. In a large as­sem­bly all can­not dine at the dustha-​khawn of the la­dy-​host­ess, even if priv­ileged by their rank; they are, there­fore, ac­com­mo­dat­ed in groups of ten, fif­teen, or more, as may be con­ve­nient; each la­dy hav­ing her com­pan­ion at the meal, and her slaves to brush off the in­trud­ing flies with a chowrie, to hand wa­ter, or to fetch or car­ry any ar­ti­cle of del­ica­cy from or to a neigh­bour­ing group. The slaves and ser­vants dine in par­ties af­ter their ladies have fin­ished, in any re­tired cor­ner of the court-​yard--al­ways avoid­ing as much as pos­si­ble the pres­ence of their su­pe­ri­ors.

Be­fore any one touch­es the meal, wa­ter is car­ried round for each la­dy to wash the hand and rinse the mouth. It is deemed un­clean to eat with­out this form of ablu­tion, and the per­son ne­glect­ing it would he held un­holy; this done, the la­dy turns to her meal, say­ing, 'Bis ma Al­lah!'--(In the name or to the praise of God!) and with the right hand con­veys the food to her mouth, (the left is nev­er used at meals)[20]; and al­though they par­take of ev­ery va­ri­ety of food placed be­fore them with no oth­er aid than their fin­gers, yet the me­chan­ical habit is so per­fect, that they nei­ther drop a grain of rice, soil the dress, nor re­tain any of the food on their fin­gers. The cus­tom must al­ways be of­fen­sive to a for­eign eye, and the habit none would wish to copy; yet ev­ery one who wit­ness­es must ad­mire the neat way in which eat­ing is ac­com­plished by these re­al­ly 'chil­dren of Na­ture'.

The repast con­clud­ed, the lota[21] (ves­sel with wa­ter), and the lug­gun[22] (to re­ceive the wa­ter in af­ter rins­ing the hands and mouth), are passed round to ev­ery per­son, who hav­ing an­nounced by the 'Shug­gur Al­lah!'--All thanks to God!--that she has fin­ished, the at­ten­dants present first the pow­dered peas, culled ba­sun,[23]--which an­swers the pur­pose of soap in re­mov­ing grease, &c., from the fin­gers,--and then the wa­ter in due course. Soap has not even yet been brought in­to fash­ion by the Na­tives, ex­cept by the wash­er­men; I have of­ten been sur­prised that they have not found the use of soap a nec­es­sary ar­ti­cle in the nurs­ery, where the on­ly sub­sti­tute I have seen is the pow­dered pea.

Lotas and lug­guns are ar­ti­cles in use with all class­es of peo­ple; they must be poor in­deed who do not boast of one, at least, in their fam­ily. They are al­ways of met­al, ei­ther brass, or cop­per lac­quered over, or zinc; in some cas­es, as with the no­bil­ity, sil­ver and even gold are con­vert­ed in­to these use­ful ar­ti­cles of Na­tive com­fort.

Chi­na or glass is com­par­ative­ly but lit­tle used; wa­ter is their on­ly bev­er­age, and this is pre­ferred, in the ab­sence of met­al basins, out of the com­mon red earth­en ka­torah[24] (cup shaped like a vase).

Chi­na dish­es, bowls, and basins, are used for serv­ing many of the savoury ar­ti­cles of food in; but it is as com­mon in the pri­va­cy of the palace, as well as in the huts of the peas­antry, to see many choice things in­tro­duced at meals served up in the rude red earth­en plat­ter; many of the del­ica­cies of Asi­at­ic cook­ery be­ing es­teemed more palat­able from the earth­en flavour of the new ves­sel in which it is served.

I very well re­mem­ber the first few days of my so­journ at Luc­know, feel­ing some­thing bor­der­ing on dis­sat­is­fac­tion, at the rude ap­pear­ance of the dish­es con­tain­ing choice spec­imens of In­di­an cook­ery, which poured in (as is cus­tom­ary up­on fresh ar­rivals) from the friends of the fam­ily I had be­come a mem­ber of. I fan­cied, in my ig­no­rance, that the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple per­pet­uat­ed their prej­udices even to me, and that they must fear I should con­tam­inate their chi­na dish­es; but I was soon sat­is­fied on this point: I found, by ex­pe­ri­ence, that brown earth­en plat­ters were used by the no­bil­ity from choice; and in some in­stances, the viand would have want­ed its great­est rel­ish if served in Chi­na or sil­ver ves­sels. Cus­tom rec­on­ciles ev­ery thing: I can drink a draught of pure wa­ter now from the earth­en ka­torah of the Na­tives with as much plea­sure as from a glass or a sil­ver cup, and feel as well sat­is­fied with their dain­ties out of an earth­en plat­ter, as when con­veyed in sil­ver or Chi­na dish­es.

Chi­na tea sets are very rarely found in the zeenah­nah; tea be­ing used by the Na­tives more as a medicine than a re­fresh­ment, ex­cept by such gen­tle­men as have fre­quent in­ter­course with the 'Sahib Logue' (En­glish gen­try), among whom they ac­quire a taste for this de­light­ful bev­er­age. The ladies, how­ev­er, must have a se­vere cold to in­duce them to par­take of the bev­er­age even as a rem­edy, but by no means as a lux­ury.[25] I imag­ined that the in­hab­itants of a zeenah­nah were sad­ly de­fi­cient in ac­tu­al com­forts, when I found, up­on my first ar­rival in In­dia, that there were no prepa­ra­tions for break­fast go­ing for­ward: ev­ery one seemed en­gaged in pawn eat­ing, and smok­ing the hookha, but no break­fast af­ter the morn­ing Na­maaz. I was, how­ev­er, soon sat­is­fied that they felt no sort of pri­va­tion, as the ear­ly meal so com­mon in Eu­rope has nev­er been in­tro­duced in East­ern cir­cles. Their first meal is a good sub­stan­tial din­ner, at ten, eleven, or twelve o'clock, af­ter which fol­low pawn and the hookha; to this suc­ceeds a sleep of two or three hours, pro­vid­ing it does not im­pede the du­ty of prayer;--the pi­ous, I ought to re­mark, would give up ev­ery in­dul­gence which would pre­vent the dis­charge of this du­ty. The sec­ond meal fol­lows in twelve hours from the first, and con­sists of the same sub­stan­tial fare; af­ter which they usu­al­ly sleep again un­til the dawn of day is near at hand.

It is the cus­tom amongst Na­tives to eat fruit af­ter the morn­ing sleep, when dried fruits, con­fec­tionery, radish­es, car­rots, sug­ar-​cane, green peas, and oth­er such del­ica­cies, are like­wise con­sid­ered whole­some lux­uries, both with the ladies and the chil­dren. A dessert im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter din­ner is con­sid­ered so un­whole­some, that they deem our prac­tice ex­treme­ly in­ju­di­cious. Such is the dif­fer­ence of cus­tom; and I am dis­posed to think their fash­ion, in this in­stance, would be worth im­itat­ing by Eu­ro­peans whilst re­sid­ing in In­dia.

I have been much amused with the cu­ri­ous in­quiries of a zeenah­nah fam­ily when the gar­den­er's dhaullie is in­tro­duced. A dhaullie,[26] I must first tell you, is a flat bas­ket, on which is ar­ranged, in neat or­der, what­ev­er fruit, veg­eta­bles, or herbs are at the time in sea­son, with a nosegay of flow­ers placed in the cen­tre. They will of­ten ask with won­der--'How do these things grow?'--'How do they look in the ground?'--and many such child-​like re­marks have I lis­tened to with pity, whilst I have re­lieved my heart by ex­plain­ing the op­er­ations of Na­ture in the veg­etable king­dom, a sub­ject on which they are per­fect­ly ig­no­rant, and, from the habits of seclu­sion in which they live, can nev­er prop­er­ly be made to un­der­stand or en­joy.

I have said wa­ter is the on­ly bev­er­age in gen­er­al use amongst the Mus­sul­maun Na­tives. They have sher­bet, how­ev­er, as a lux­ury on oc­ca­sions of fes­ti­vals, mar­riages, &c. This sher­bet is sim­ply sug­ar and wa­ter, with a flavour of rose-​wa­ter, or ku­rah[27] added to it.

The hookha is al­most in gen­er­al use with fe­males. It is a com­mon prac­tice with the la­dy of the house to present the hookha she is smok­ing to her favoured guest. This mark of at­ten­tion is al­ways to be du­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed; but such is the def­er­ence paid to par­ents, that a son can rarely be per­suad­ed by an in­dul­gent fa­ther or moth­er to smoke a hookha in their revered pres­ence;--this praise­wor­thy feel­ing orig­inates not in fear, but re­al gen­uine re­spect. The par­ents en­ter­tain for their son the most ten­der re­gard; and the fa­ther makes him both his com­pan­ion and his friend; yet the most fa­mil­iar en­dear­ments do not lessen the feel­ing of rev­er­ence a good son en­ter­tains for his fa­ther. This is one among the many sam­ples of pa­tri­ar­chal life, my first Let­ter al­lud­ed to, and which I can nev­er wit­ness in re­al life, with­out feel­ing re­spect for the per­sons who fol­low up the pat­terns I have been taught to ven­er­ate in our Holy Scrip­ture.

The hookha, as an in­dul­gence of a priv­ilege, is a great de­fin­er of eti­quette. In the pres­ence of the King or reign­ing Nuwaub, no sub­ject, how­ev­er high he may rank in blood or roy­al favour, can pre­sume to smoke. In Na­tive courts, on state oc­ca­sions, hookhas are pre­sent­ed on­ly to the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al, the Com­man­der-​in-​Chief, or the Res­ident at his Court, who are con­sid­ered equals in rank, and there­fore en­ti­tled to the priv­ilege of smok­ing with him; and they can­not con­sis­tent­ly re­sist the in­tend­ed hon­our. Should they dis­like smok­ing, a hint is read­ily un­der­stood by the hookha-​bahd­haar[28] to bring the hookha, charged with the ma­te­ri­als, with­out the ad­di­tion of fire. Ap­pli­ca­tion of the mu­nall[29] (mouth-​piece) to the month in­di­cates a sense of the hon­our con­ferred.

[1] _Ma­hall._

[2] _Par­da._

[3] _Jhilmil, chiq,_ the An­glo-​In­di­an 'chick'.

[4] _Sha­tran­ji_, see p. 19.

[5] _Sozani_ (_sozan_, 'a nee­dle'), an em­broi­dered quilt.

[6] _Razai_, a coun­ter­pane padded with cot­ton.

[7] _Dopat­ta_, a dou­ble sheet: see p. 26.

[8] See p. 24.

[9] _Das­tarkhwan_, see p. 108.

[10] 'Ay­ishah, daugh­ter of Abubakr, third and best loved wife of the Prophet, though she bore him no child. The tale of the scan­dal about her is his­tor­ical, but it is treat­ed as a calum­ny (_Ko­ran_, xxiv. II, 22, with Sale's note).

[11] Known as the _burqa_.

[12] Amir Taimur, known as Taimur Lang, 'the lame', was born A.D. 1336; as­cend­ed the throne at Balkh, 1370; in­vad­ed In­dia and cap­tured Del­hi, 1398; died 1405, and was buried at Samarkand. There seems to be no ev­idence that he in­tro­duced the prac­tice of the seclu­sion of wom­en, an an­cient Semitic cus­tom, which, how­ev­er, was prob­ably en­forced on the peo­ple of In­dia by the bru­tal­ity of for­eign in­vaders.

[13] _Dak_.

[14] See p. 32.

[15] _Kabab_, prop­er­ly, small pieces of meat roast­ed on skew­ers.

[16] _Nan­bai_, a bak­er of bread _(nan)_.

[17] _Khir_, milk boiled with rice, sug­ar, and spices.

[18] _Mu­tan­jan_, a cor­rup­tion of _mut­ta­jjan_, 'fried in a pan'; usu­al­ly in the form _mu­tan­jan pu­lao_, meat boiled with rice, sug­ar, but­ter, and some­times pine-​ap­ples or nuts.

[19] _Salan_, a cur­ry of meat, fish, or veg­eta­bles.

[20] The left hand is used for pur­pos­es of ablu­tion.

[21] The Musalman _lota_, prop­er­ly called _badhna_, dif­fers from that used by Hin­dus in hav­ing a spout like that of a teapot.

[22] _La­gan_, a brass or cop­per pan in which the hands are washed: al­so used for knead­ing dough.

[23] _Be­san_, flour, prop­er­ly that of gram (_chana_). The prej­udice against soap is large­ly due to im­ita­tion of Hin­dus, who be­lieve them­selves to be pol­lut­ed by fat. Arabs, af­ter a meal, wash their hands and mouths with soap (Bur­ton, _Pil­grim­age_, ii. 257). Sir G. Watt (_Eco­nom­ic Dic­tio­nary_, iii. 84 ff.) gives a long list of oth­er de­ter­gents and sub­sti­tutes for soap.

[24] _Ka­to­ra_.

[25] The prej­udice against the use of tea has much de­creased since this book was writ­ten, ow­ing to its cul­ti­va­tion in In­dia. Musalmans and many Hin­dus now drink it freely.

[26] _Dali_, the 'dol­ly' of An­glo-​In­di­ans.

[27] See p. 13.

[28] _Huqqah­bar­dar_.

[29] _Munhnal_.