f 



28 



more so to behold the English ladies and gentlemen take the trou- 

 ble of dancing themselves, when they can have a variety of dancers 

 and singers for money: the men like to be well mounted, and give 

 a high price for a good horse and sumptuous furniture; they at- 

 tend very little to the fine arts, useful improvements, or literary 

 fame; their libraries in general contain only a few tracts of oriental 

 history, Persian poetry, and Arabian tales, with voluminous com- 

 mentaries on the Koran, but they have little knowledge of general 

 history and the belles-leltres. When the caliph Omar was solicited 

 to spare the Alexandrian library, he replied that its contents either 

 did, or did not, agree with Avhat was written in the holy pages of 

 the Koran; if the former, he alleged the Koran to be sufficient; 

 if the latter, other books were pernicious, and ought to be de- 

 stroyed. Omar was an ignorant and furious bigot, but many of 

 the succeeding caliphs encouraged letters, and even caused the 

 Greek and Latin classics to be translated, when Europe was en- 

 veloped in barbarism and monkish ignorance. 



My situation at camp was always at head-quarters: in a beau- 

 tiful summer palace belonging to the nabob, on the border of the 

 spacious lake at Narranseer, which was always appropriated to 

 the use of the commanding officer and his familj r , we passed our 

 time as pleasantly as the extreme heat of the weather and anxiety 

 respecting the junction with Ragobah's forces would admit. Thetank 

 was surrounded by groves of mango and tamarind trees, surmounted 

 by the minarets and domes of Cambay: the adjacent plains, cul- 

 tivated and enclosed, produced fine crops of cotton, indigo, wheat, 

 and other grain; the wilder tracts abounded with deer, antelopes, 

 hares, jackals, wolves, and hyenas; the lakes and rivers with 



