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Abraham's servant and Rebecca at the gate of Nahor to an intelli- 

 gent native, when she came to that passage where the virgin went 

 down to the well with her pitcher upon her shoulder, her attentive 

 friend exclaimed, " Madam, that woman was of high caste:" this 

 he implied from the circumstance of carrying the pitcher upon 

 her shoulder, and not on her head. Some of the highest classes 

 among the brahmins do the same. 



The Guzerat villagers are not without their amusements, be- 

 ing often visited by travelling comedians, who exhibit puppet-shows 

 and act historical plays by these miniature performers with laugh- 

 able effect. Musicians, dancing-girls, singing men and women, 

 occasionally beguile an idle hour; jugglers and wrestlers perform 

 extraordinary feats of agility and sleight of hand; dancing-bears, 

 trickish goats and monkeys, are also carried about for amuse- 

 ment. 



Such was the peaceful state of Guzerat. During the war this 

 pleasing picture was sadly reversed; the villages were deserted 

 and destroyed, the harvests reaped by lawless marauders, and not 

 a passenger to be seen on the public roads: the cattle that had 

 escaped the armies, were driven for protection under the walls of 

 cities, where the peasants were promiscuously huddled together 

 in famine and wretchedness of every description. The melancholy 

 situation of the Guzerat peasants is pathetically pictured in the 

 song of Deborah. " The enemy came up with their cattle and 

 " their tents, and they came as locusts for multitude, for both 

 *' them and their camels were without number, and they entered 

 •' into the land to destroy it. The highways were unoccupied, and 

 " the travellers walked through by-ways; the inhabitants of the 



