140 A Ramble with the Travellers. [FEB. 



Laureate has styled Him, he seems to have been carried forward by the 

 natural impetuosity of his character. He speaks of his " always hungry 

 intellect/' and the love-disappointment which he experienced at Rome, 

 was perhaps the most fortunate event of his life, for it turned his abilities 

 into that track which led him in after time to the Temple of Fame. His 

 vanity is excessive, but then it is rendered amusing by the hyperbole of 

 its nature. He has left a ludicrous description of the " miseries" he 

 underwent at a dinner to which the Indian king invited him, and of his 

 extreme anxiety not to touch anything likely to soil his fingers, which, 

 considering the nature of an Oriental repast, must have been very 

 difficult. There happened unfortunately to be a dish of rice and butter 

 before Pietro, which the king was exceedingly desirous he should taste. 

 He made many excuses, but the king obviated them all by offering to 

 send to his house for a spoon. " The servant," Delia Valle informs us 

 with great complacency, " brought back a silver spoon, a fork, and a 

 clean and fine napkin, very handsomely folded in small plaits." Having 

 laid the napkin on his knees he began to eat ; and the royal entertainer 

 and his company being astonished, as they well might, at these " exqui- 

 site and, to them, unusual modes," exclaimed, " Deiiru ! Deitru I A 

 great man ! a god !" Indeed so highly did the king and his party seem 

 gratified, that our traveller narrowly escaped death by repletion. 



But the character of Pietro della Valle offers traits of a different kind ; 

 we have rarely read anything more touchingly beautiful than the nar- 

 rative of his wanderings in India, accompanied by the coffined remains of 

 his lovely wife Maani. We would refer our readers for this pathetic pas- 

 sage in the history of the Italian to his own letters, or to the elegant 

 abridgment given by Mr. St. John. A change had truly come over the 

 spirit of his dream, and he went forward upon his future pilgrimage as one 

 having no hope in the world. He writes from Rome, three years after, to 

 his friend Schipano, in terms that convince us that his love of her who was 

 st to be no more seen" upon this earth, had suffered no diminution. The 

 burial of the body of Maani is affectingly related. " On St. James's 

 Day," he says, writing to his friend, " the 25th of July last, intending 

 to bury the body of Sitti Maani Gioeride, my wife (which I had brought 

 with me so many voyages) in the Chapel of St. Paul, belonging to the 

 Church of Asa Coeli, in the capital, before I unclosed a coffin of lead 

 prepared, I resolved to open the innermost wooden coffin, that I might 

 see how it was after so many years. I found the flesh of the head wholly 

 consumed. The rest of the body seemed better preserved, but because 

 the face was no longer to be seen I would not unfold the linen further. 

 The dry herb wherewith I had first filled the vacuities of the coffin 

 were still entire." He then proceeds to say that he descended into 

 the vault and assisted in placing the coffin " with his own hands," and 

 he concludes thus : " This last office of piety which remained I have paid 

 to the mortal reliques of my dear consort Sitti Maani ; yet it is not 

 the last that I perform to her other and immortal part, which I accom- 

 pany with suffrages ; neither have I abandoned those in the tomb, but 

 deposited them, intending (when it shall please God) to have my own 

 ashes laid in the same place and to rise again with her." We quote, 

 with trifling alteration, from the translation of 1665. 



Our space will not permit of our lingering with Della Valle, but the 

 passage in which he alludes to the peculiar mode of instructing Indian 

 children may be noticed. It was after passing the Western Ghauts that 



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