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beauty! Thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil, and wast 

 exceedingly beautiful." Such is the figurative language of Eze- 

 kiel for the daughter ofZion, the lady of beauty, the capital of 

 Judea. It is literally a description of those noble Mogul women 

 lately mentioned, who privately sent out their nurses and duennas to 

 barter their jewels for bread, and their ornaments for a measure of 

 grain. These women are not like the temporary nurses in Europe, but 

 such as Savary mentions in Egypt, and common in the respectable 

 families of Hindoslan, where peculiar circumstances may require 

 a female of that description, who is not looked upon as a stranger, 

 but becomes one of the family, and passes the remainder of her 

 life in the midst of the children she has suckled, by whom she is 

 honoured and cherished like a second mother. 



These elderly matrons make no objection to visit a man of 

 character, whether European or native, especially when they can 

 befriend their unhappy mistress or her children. Such were they 

 who brought the agate mirror and jewels to the English o-entle- 

 men during my visit at Ahmedabad, who lamented the misfortunes 

 and dignified sorrow of their ladies with little variation from these 

 pathetic strains of sacred writ: " The daughters of Zion sit upon 

 the ground, and keep silence; they have cast dust upon their heads, 

 and covered themselves with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem 

 hang down their heads to the ground. What thing shall I take to 

 witness for thee? unto what shall I liken thee, O daughter of 

 Jerusalem? Who can heal thee, and with what shall I comfort 

 thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? The children and the suckling 

 swoon in the streets of the city; they say unto their mothers, where 

 is corn and wine?" 



