250 SISTEES OF MEEK SHAH NOWAZ. 



portunity of observing the domestic habits of 

 their inmates that probably no other European 

 ever possessed, and her description of the ladies 

 of the Meer's family is on the whole favom'able. 

 His Highness' mother still shows the remains 

 of early beauty, as does the mother of Meer 

 Shah Nowaz, whose wife, and the wives of Meer 

 Fyze Mahomed, are also good-looking. The 

 Meer's youngest wife, whom he has never seen 

 since the day after his marriage, having, it is 

 said, taken an aversion to her, is described as a 

 very beautiful young woman. The mother of 

 the two younger princes, as I before said, is a 

 dame of vast proportions, but with a jolly, good- 

 humoured countenance. She seldom leaves her 

 residence, perhaps from the impossibility of 

 finding a camel equal to her enormous weight, 

 with that of a counterbalancing burden on the 

 op230site side. The sisters of Meer Shah Nowaz 

 are said to be rather comely damsels, the 

 youngest of them being now about fifteen, the 

 other two a few years older. When at Khyr- 

 poor, the young ladies were occasionally ob- 

 served peeping, or perchance the maidens thus 

 seen may have been slave girls, but distance 

 lent its aid to our imaginations, and we beguiled 



