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bowls of wine, which are commonly of silver, and some of gold. 

 AVhen they have tired themselves with feasting, as they depart they 

 return thanks, by inviting every one in course to an entertainment 

 of the like nature, where they strive to ouldo each other." 



At the entertainment given us by the nabob, he was attended 

 by the vizier and all his great officers; and from a latticed cham- 

 ber the ladies of the haram (invisible to us) had a view of the Eu- 

 ropean strangers. A part of his domestic establishment consists of 

 professed story-tellers, called kissa kawn, a class of people well 

 known to the admirers of Persian and Arabian tales: they have 

 always been entertained by the oriental princes. Richardson, in 

 his valuable dissertations on eastern manners, says, " professed 

 story-tellers are there of ancient date; even at this day men of rank 

 have usually one or more, male or female, among their attendants, 

 who amuse them and their women, when melancholy, vexed, or 

 indisposed; and they are generally employed to lull them to sleep. 

 Many of their tales are highly amusing, especially those of Persian 

 origin, or such as have been written on their model. They were 

 thought so dangerous by Mohammed, that he expressly prohibited 

 them in the Koran." 



One of my friends, a former resident at Cambay, and a favour- 

 ite of the nabob, being ill with a fever, which banished sleep and 

 baffled the power of medicine, the nabob sent him two female 

 story-tellers, of respectable Mogul families, but neither young nor 

 handsome. Placing themselves on each side of his pillow, one of 

 them in a monotonous tone commenced a tale, which in due time 

 had a soporiferous effect : the patient enjoyed a slumber to which 

 he had long been unaccustomed; when he awoke the story was 



