OLD HAILEYBURY. 149 



plants around, and when I asked him to visit my museum, he said 

 he hated " Bugs and beetles." But he was a very modest fellow, 

 with all his learning, and would patiently try and make the natives 

 understand what he was driving at, in his broad Irish accent, 

 doubtless wishing all the time, that the hours wasted over Owen 

 had been given to Hindustani. 



It is a matter for regret also that the advice of Sir Charles 

 Trevelyan and Sir Monier Williams has not been taken in 

 introducing the Roman character into India, for writing Oriental 

 languages. It is said that no one ever composes good poetry in a 

 foreign tongue, and I am sure no Englishman ever acquired facility 

 in reading the native scrawls. The printed character is bad 

 enough ! 



My father wrote a fearful fist, and in my school-boy days a story 

 was current in the village, which, on the slightest provocation, was 

 pretty sure to be repeated. That on one occasion he sent some 

 written instructions to his clerk, who failed to read them. The 

 schoolmaster was then called in, as an expert to interpret, but, as he 

 failed also, the bright idea occurred that the manuscript should be 

 submitted to the Rector for explanation. And then came the point 

 of the story, which of course was received with laughter, especially 

 by those who wrote a good 

 round hand. For when the 

 manuscript was returned, 

 the Rector himself could ^-_1_ 



make neither head nor tail 

 of what he had written, look 

 at it which way he would. 



But such a manuscript 

 as that, with most of the 

 vowels taken out, would 



give only a faint idea of a specimen of fair Hindustani writing, and scrawl, as it 



document in India, where generally appears in native documents. In English it 



,1,1 J 1 1 i i means, " Hail cherisher of the poor." Petitions in India 



all the words and letters usually commence thus. 



JL 



