504 



arlless hospitality so delightful in the poems of Homer, and other 

 ancient records. On a sultry day, neat a Zinore village, having 

 rode faster than my attendants, while waiting their arrival under 

 a tamarind tree, a young woman came to the well; I asked for a 

 little water, but neither of us having a drinking vessel, she hastily 

 left me, as I imagined, to bring an earthen cup for the purpose, as 

 I should have polluted a vessel of metal : but as Jael, when Sisera 

 asked for water, gave him milk, and " brought forth butter in a 

 lordly dish," so did this village damsel, with more sincerity than 

 Heber's wife, bring me a pot of milk, and a lump of butter on the 

 delicate leaf of the banana, " the lordly dish" of the Hindoos. 

 The former I gladly accepted : on my declining the latter, she im- 

 mediately made it up into two balls, and gave one to each of the 

 oxen that drew my hackery. Butter is a luxury to these animals, 

 and enables them to bear additional fatigue. 



On my first arrival at Zinore, the zemindars, as customary, 

 paid me a respectful visit, bringing presents of money and jewels : 

 those I refused, except one rupee ; which, notwithstanding every 

 injunction to the contrary, I did take from the head zemindar of 

 each district under my charge. These four rupees I preserve in 

 remembrance of the people among whom I lived, who would have 

 been hurt at a total refusal. Although prohibited by oaths and 

 covenants from accepting any valuable presents, I did not refuse 

 what they sent for me and my people to the shamyanah I fixed 

 near the bank of the river, for want of a more comfortable residence 

 in the town. These articles so exactby resembled those which 

 Barzillai and his friends brought to David at Mahanaim, that 

 hardly a single word need be altered: " Shobi, and Macher, and 



