"Our admiration of their children is reciprocated by the Orientals. I have heard of a Chief travelling many miles to see the fair and flaxen hair of a 'European baby;' and 'Beautiful as a white child' is almost a proverb amongst the dark-skinned Maharattas.
"We must treat Master Ibrahim—I beg his pardon, Meer Jan Mohammed Khan Talpur, as he sententiously names himself—with especial attention, as a mark of politeness to his father. We insist upon his sitting down—upon the highest seat, too—inquire with interest after his horse and his hawk, look at his dagger, and slip in a hope that he may be as brave a soldier as his father. But we must not tell him that he is a pretty boy, or ask him his age, or say anything about his brothers and sisters, otherwise we offend against the convenances. And when we wish him to be sent home—that venerable maxim,
'Maxima debetur puero reverenda,'
is still venerated in the East—we give him a trifling tohfeh (present), a pocket-pistol or a coloured print, and then he will feel that the object of his mission has been fulfilled. In Central Asia a child's visit is a mere present-trap.
"You admire the row of bottles displayed upon the table—a dozen at least of champagne and sherry, curaçoa and noyau, brandy and gin, soda-water and pale ale. You will wonder still more when you see Ibrahim Khan disposing of their contents recklessly, mixing them (after consumption) by tumblers full, intoxicating himself with each draught, and in each twenty minutes' interval becoming, by dint of pushing his cap off his brow, scratching his head, abusing his moonshee, and concentrating all the energies of mind and body upon his pipe, sober as judges are said to be.
"A faint 'twang-twang' draws your attention to the corner of the tent. As in the ages preceding Darius, so since his time the soirée of Oriental Cæsar, or Chief, never ended without sweet music.
"Remark the appearance of the performer. He is a dark, chocolate-coloured man with a ragged beard, an opium look, sharp, thin features, and a skin that appears never to have known ablution. A dirty, torn cloth wrapped round his temples acts as turban; the rest of the attire, a long shirt of green cotton and blue drawers, is in a state which may be designated 'disgusting.' In his hand is his surando, the instrument of his craft, a rude form of the violin, with four or five sheep-gut strings, which are made to discourse eloquent music by a short crooked bow that contains half the tail of a horse. He is preparing to perform, not in the attitude of a Paganini, but as we see in old Raphaels, and occasionally in the byways of Italy—the instrument resting upon his lap instead of his collar-bone. Before the preliminary scraping ends, whilst the Meer is reviling Kakoo Mall sotto voce, a word or two about the fellow and his race.
"The Langho, or, as he is politely and accurately termed, the Manganhar, or 'asker'[17]—they are the most peremptory and persevering of beggars—is a particular caste in Scindi. Anciently all the great clans had their own minstrels, whose duty it was to preserve their tradition for recital on festival occasions, and to attend the Chief in battle, where they noted everything with an eagle's eye, praising those that fought, and raining showers of curses, taunts, and invectives upon those that fled. This part of their occupation is now gone. In the present day they subsist principally by the charity of the people, and by attending at the houses in which their professional services at marriages and other ceremonies are required. They are idle as well as fond of pleasure, dirty, immoral, and notoriously dishonest. Largesse to a minstrel being a gentlemanly way of wasting one's substance in Scinde, those that employ the 'asker' are provoked to liberality till either the will or the way fail. In the mean time he spends every pice, with all the recklessness of a Western artiste, in drinking, gambling, and the silliest ostentation. He is not expected to live long, and none knows what becomes of him in his old age.
"Our friend the Meer has, I am told by Hari Chand, suffered so much from these men's sneering encomiums upon his valour and conduct in the late war, that he once tried the experiment of paying them liberally to avoid his palace. Finding that the revenues of Persia would be inadequate to carry out the scheme, he has altered his tactics, and now supports half a dozen of these, on the express condition that they never allude to the battles of Meeanee or Dubbah in his presence.
"And now, as Ibrahim Khan looks tired of attempting to converse with our surly Afghans, and of outraging the feelings of his moonshee, we will lend an ear to Music—heavenly maid—as she springs upon us in grimly guise from the head of Aludo, the minstrel.