horse-tamers
and snake-charmers, fakirs and pilgrims, I saw a small boy possessed
of a devil,--an authentic devil, as of yore, meet for miraculous
driving-out. In the midst of dire din, heathenish and
horrible,--dissonant jangle of zogees' bells, brain-rending blasts from
Brahmins' shells, strepent howling of opium-drunk devotees, delirious
pounding of tom-toms, brazen clangor of gongs,--a child of seven years,
that might, unpossessed, have been beautiful, sat under the shed of
a sort of curiosity-shop, among bangles and armlets, mouthpieces
for pipes, leaden idols, and Brahminical cords, and made infernal
faces,--his mouth foaming epileptically, his hair dishevelled and matted
with sudden sweat, his eyes blood-shot, his whole aspect diabolic. And
on the ground before the miserable lad were set dishes of rice mixed
with blood, carcasses of rams and cocks, handfuls of red flowers, and
ragged locks of human hair, wherewith the more miserable people sought
to appease the fell _bhuta_ that had set up his throne in that fair
soul. _Sack bat?_ It was even so. And as the possessed made spasmy fists
with his feet, clinching his toes strangely, and grinned, with his chin
between his knees, I solemnly wished for the presence of One who might
cry with the voice of authority, as erst in the land of the Gadarenes,
"Come out of the lad, thou unclean spirit!"

At the Hurdwar fair pretty little naked girls are exposed for sale, and
in their soft brown innocence appeal at once to the purity of your mind
and the tenderness of your heart. They come from Cashmere with the
shawls, or from Cabool with the kittens, or from the Punjaub with the
arms and shields.

* * * * *

Very quaint are the little Miriams, Ruths, and Hannahs of the Jewish
houses in Bombay,--with their full trousers of blue satin and gold,
their boyish Fez caps of spangled red velvet, bound round with
party-colored turbans, their chin-bands of pearls, their coin chains,
their great gold bangles, and the jingling tassels of their long plaits.

Less interesting, because formal and inanimate, even to sulkiness,
are the prim little Parsee maidens, who often wear an "exercised"
expression, of a settled sort, as though they were weary of reflecting
on the hollowness of the world, and how their dolls are stuffed with
sawdust, and that Dakhma, the Tower of Silence, is the end of all
things.

Then there are the regimental _babalogue_, the soldier