122 REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



THE K'HAUNIE KINEH-WALLA, OR EASTERN STORY-TELLER ; A COLLEC- 

 TION OF INDIAN TALES. By JOHN SHIPP. London. Longman and Co. 



The following extract from the preface will furnish the reader with the 

 design of the present work : 



" Amongst the various pastimes resorted to for the purpose of wiling 

 away the hours which the sultry heats of Hindoostan doom the inhabitants 

 to pass, in what might otherwise prove wearisome confinement, within 

 doors, there is none of which the natives, particularly of the higher classes, 

 both male and female, Mussulman and Hindoo, seem more fond than that of 

 listening to entertaining stories. Of these, under the several names of 

 Charitra, Keest'hee, and K'haunie, many are legends of the devout lives, 

 austere practices, and instructive discourses of celebrated Durweish, Fakirs, 

 and other religious characters ; many relate the adventures of the most re- 

 markable personages rulers, warriors, and statesmen who figure- in their 

 annals ; some partake of the romantic cast, which distinguishes the well- 

 known " Arabian Nights' Entertainments," while others are simple fables, 

 or mere tales, which serve the purpose of lighter amusement. Scarcely is 

 there a zennanah in which one or more women companions are not enter- 

 tained, whose chief business it is to tell such stories and fables to their lady 

 employer, while she is composing herself to sleep ; and, among persons of 

 rank and opulence, the males also pretty generally indulge in the same prac- 

 tice, of being talked to sleep by their male attendants ; and it is a certain 

 recommendation to the favour of the employer, of either sex, when one of 

 these dependants has acquired the happy knack of ' telling the k'htJunie' 

 fable with an agreeable voice and manner. There are, also, many indivi- 

 duals who practise this species of story-telling as a profession, deriving 

 their means of subsistence principally from the exercise of their powers of 

 amusing in this way parties assembled on festive occasions, in the private 

 residences of persons in easy circumstances, or in the inns, and places of en- 

 tertainment for travellers, or at the great public fairs : and the more they 

 embellish the narrative with brilliant flights of their own creative genius, the 

 greater their merit in the judgment of their hearers." 



The author, in another portion of his preface, says that he does not 

 pretend that these tales " have any merit on the score of either richness of 

 imagination or brilliance of fancy, but hopes that they may be productive of 

 some amusement to his readers." 



This hope may, we think, be realized. We have read several of them 

 with much interest, but must cay, that so far from partaking of any of the 

 glowing warmth of the east, they are particularly cold, both in the descrip- 

 tion of either passion or scenery. Nevertheless, " Minor, or the Foresters of 

 Nepaul" is full of romantic interest, but " Meerah, or the Victim of Avarice," 

 is at once repulsive and unnatural. The collection, which consists of nine 

 separate stories, of various length, the following is the shortest, and, 

 therefore, the better adapted for extracting. 



NUNKOODAUS, THE COBBLER OF DELHI. 



" From time immemorial Oriental princes have been curious in human 

 abortions. They love to compel into their service all whom nature formed 

 in mimicry of man, and hence their story-tellers the Asiatic Sir Walter 

 Scotts and their porters are either giants or dwarfs ; something out of the 

 common order of nature is dear to their fancy ; and, though laughter does 

 not suit the dignified gravity of their deportment, their household is perpe- 

 tually jostled by some mirth- inspiring creatures, who, if not witty them- 

 selves, are, like Fa! staff, the cause of wit in others. In Europe the great 

 once found amusement in the fooleries of fools ; but, in the east, royal 

 partiality still seeks to distinguish those errors of creation that walk the 



