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ment; which in innocence is suited to the tenets of the brahmins, 

 if not to their present character." 



Probably when Sir Charles wrote the preceding description, he 

 would not have been sceptical had he read a passage in the Asiatic 

 Researches written by Sir William Jones, which beautifully illus- 

 trates and confirms the truth of the spectacle at Poonah; I have 

 also in my possession a Hindoo painting in water colours, very 

 well done, where some young females are playing on instruments, 

 and antelopes, attracted by the music, approach from the woods. 

 The passage to which I allude is thus mentioned: " I have been 

 assured, by a credible eye-witness, that two wild antelopes used 

 often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage 

 beast, Sirajudaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that 

 they listened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure; until 

 the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them 

 to display his archery. A learned native of this country told me 

 that he had frequently seen the most venomous and malignant 

 snakes leave their holes upon hearing tunes on a flute; which, as 

 he supposed, gave them peculiar delight. An intelligent Persian, 

 who repeated his story again and again, and permitted me to 

 write it down from his lips, declared he had more than once been 

 present when a celebrated lutanist, Mirza Mohammed, surnamed 

 bulbul, was playing to a large company in a grove near Shiraz, 

 where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the 

 musician; sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering 

 from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instru- 

 ment Avhence the melody proceeded, and at length dropping on 

 the ground in a kind of ecstasy, from which they were soon raised, 



