At noon all the slave girls came for their dinners; each had given her a great chapātī (cake of flour) as large as a plate, and this was filled brim full from two great vessels of curry and rice. This repast took place again at eight in the evening. One day, just as they were beginning their meal, I sat down in the verandah and played an Hindostanee air on a sitar (a native instrument made of a gourd); up started all the slaves in an instant and set to, dancing with their food in their hands and their mouths full! Each slave girl carried her curry and rice on the wheaten cake, which was about the size of a plate, and used it as such; until having eaten the contents she finished with the cake. In spite of their dexterity in putting the food down their throats without dropping the rice or soiling their dresses, the fingers retain a considerable portion of the yellow turmeric and the greasy ghee! They eat custards, rice, and milk, and more fluid food with the hand, sucking the fingers to clean them, and afterwards wipe them dry with a chapātī! They were merry, and fat, and happy, unless the Begam happened to catch one out in a theft, when the other girls punished her. Some of the slaves were pretty girls, and great favourites. To show how little they had to do, the following anecdote may suffice. A pretty slave girl was sitting by my bedside; I held out my hand, and desired her to shampoo it: the girl’s countenance became clouded, and she did not offer to do it—her name was Tara (the Star). “Why do you not mull my hand, Tara?” said I. “Oh,” she replied, “I never mull the hand; the other girls do that; I only mull the Colonel Sāhib’s eyebrows. I can take the pain from them when he is ill;—that is my duty. I will not shampoo the hand.” I laughed at her description of the work that fell to her lot as a slave, and said, “Well, Tara, mull my eyebrows; my head aches;” with the greatest good-humour she complied, and certainly charmed away the pain. It is the great luxury of the East.
I might have lived fifty years in India and never have seen a native wedding. It is hardly possible for a European lady to be present at one. Alaida and her sister the Evening Star learnt to read and write Persian; a very old moonshee was allowed to teach them. Musulmānī ladies generally forget their learning when they grow up, or they neglect it. Every thing that passes without the four walls is reported to them by their spies: never was any place so full of intrigue, scandal, and chit-chat as a zenāna. Making up marriages is their great delight, and the bustle attendant on the ceremonies. They dote upon their children, and are so selfish they will not part from them to allow them to go to school, if it be possible to avoid it. The girls, of course, never quit the zenāna. Within the four walls surrounding the zenāna at Khāsgunge is a pretty garden, with a summer-house in the centre; fountains play before it, and they are fond of spending their time out of doors. During the rains they take great delight in swinging under the large trees in the open air. They never ride on horseback, or go on the water for pleasure. They are very fond of atr of all sorts, the scent of which is overpowering in their houses. They put scented oil on their hair; to eau-de-Cologne and lavender-water they have the greatest aversion, declaring it to be gin, to drink! The prophet forbade all fermented liquors, after a battle which he nearly lost by his soldiers getting drunk, and being surprised.
The old Begam said to Colonel Gardner, “They are curious creatures, these English ladies; I cannot understand them or their ways,—their ways are so odd!” And yet the Begam must have seen so many European ladies, I wonder she had not become more reconciled to our odd ways.
The conduct that shocked them was our dining with men not our relations, and that too with uncovered faces. A lady’s going out on horseback is monstrous. They could not comprehend my galloping about on that great English horse, just where I pleased, with one or two gentlemen and the coachman as my attendants. My not being afraid to sleep in the dark without having half a dozen slave girls snoring around me, surprised them. My remaining alone writing in my own room, my not being unhappy when I was alone,—in fact, they looked upon me as a very odd creature. It was almost impossible to enjoy solitude, the slave girls were peeping under the corner of every parda. Some one or other was always coming to talk to me; sometimes asking me to make up a marriage! If a native lady is relating a story, and you look incredulous, she exclaims, “I swear to God it is true!” They are very fond of this exclamation. One day, in the gardens, I was talking to Tara, the pretty slave girl, when she darted away over the poppy beds, screaming out, “I swear to God there is a ripe poppy-head!” and she came back with her ripe poppy-head, out of which she beat the seeds on the palm of her hand, and ate them. She then brought some more for me, which I ate in her fashion. The half-ripe seeds of the poppy eaten raw, and fresh gathered, are like almonds; they do not intoxicate. “Remember,” said Tara, “after dinner you shall have a dish sent you; partake of it, you will like it.” It is made thus; gather three or four young poppy-heads when they are full of opium, and green; split each head into four parts, fry them in a little butter, a very little, only just enough to fry them, with some pepper and salt—send them to table, with the dessert. The flavour is very pleasant, and if you only eat enough, you will become as tipsy as mortal may desire. We had them often at Colonel Gardner’s; and I have felt rather sleepy from eating them. The old nawab was in his glory when he had two or three spoonfuls of these poppy-heads in his plate, one of which is a good dose. I was so fond of the unripe seeds, that I never went into the garden, but the mālī brought me ten or twelve heads, which I usually finished at once. There were some beds of the double red poppy, especially set apart for the Begam, the opium from that poppy being reckoned the finest; a couple of lumps of opium were collected, and brought in daily. Colonel Gardner said to me, “The Begam is perplexed; she wants to know how you, a married woman, can have received the gift of a nose-ring from a gentleman not your husband? She says the nose-ring is the bridal ring. She is perplexed.” I had differed in opinion with a gentleman: he said, “I will bet you a nose-ring you are in the wrong.” The native jewellers had been at the house that morning showing their nose-rings, and other native ornaments. I accepted the bet, and was victorious: the gentleman presented me with a nose-ring, which I declined, because its value was one hundred and sixty rupees, i.e. £16. “I will accept the n’hut I have won, but it must be one from the bazār, which will be an exact imitation of this ring, and will cost one rupee and a half.” It was accordingly procured for me. The Begam having heard this story was perplexed until it was explained to her, that I was not going to marry the gentleman, and had only accepted the nose-ring to make a native dress perfect.
Three of the slave girls, wishing to see the world, I suppose, went to the Begam, and asked her to give them to me. She laughed and told me their request.
Science has not yet entered the confines of the zenāna; nature and superstition reign supreme; nevertheless, native women suffer less on the birth of a child than the women of Europe. The first nourishment given an infant medicinally is composed of umaltass (cassia fistula), sugar, aniseed water, and russote, from a colt just born! Native women do not approve of flannel for infants, thinking it excites the skin too much.
In [page 230] is the following remark by Colonel Gardner,—“Nothing can exceed the quarrels that go on in a zenāna, or the complaints the Begams make against each other; a common complaint is, such an one has been practising witchcraft against me.” The following extracts will account for their belief in witchcraft. “Aa’yeshah said, ‘His Majesty was bewitched while he was with me, and he prayed to God, and then said, ‘O Aa’yeshah! do you know, that verily God gave me what I asked him? Two men came to me, one sitting at my head, the other at my feet; and one of them said to the other, ‘What is the cause of his Majesty’s pain and illness?’ The other said, ‘The man has been bewitched.’ The other asked, ‘Who did it?’ He said, ‘Labid-bin-As’am, the Jew.’ The first said, ‘In what thing?’ The other replied, ‘In a comb, and in the hair which falls from it, and in the film of the male date bud.’ And one of them said, ‘Where has he put them?’ The other said, ‘In the well Dharwān.’ Then his Majesty sent Alī and Omer to bring the things out of the well; and they found in the bud an image of his Majesty, made with wax, with needles stuck into it, and a thread tied upon it, with eleven knots in it. Then Gabriel brought the chapters imploring protection, every verse of which repeated opened one of the knots; and his Majesty received ease from every needle that was pulled out of it.”
“His Highness permitted spells being used, to counteract the effects of a malignant eye; and on those bit by snakes, or scorpions, and for sores in the side. A man said to his Majesty, ‘We made use of charms in the time of ignorance, may we use them now or not?’ He said, ‘Describe your spells to me, that I may see the meaning of them; there is no fear in using spells which do not associate any thing with God.’”
“Zainab, wife of Abdullah-bin-Masu’ud, said, ‘Abdullah saw a thread round my neck, and said, ‘What is this?’ I said, ‘This is a thread which has been made as a charm for me.’ Then he took and broke it to pieces; after that he said, ‘O family of Abdullah! verily you stand not in need of this kind of charm used by the polytheists; because I heard the Prophet say, Verily, spells and tying to the necks of children the nails of tearing animals, and the thread which is tied round a wife’s neck, to make her husband love her, are all in the way of the polytheists.’”