590 



of Baroche and its popular purgunna, lhat the English govern- 

 ment might be continued over that fertile and happy country. 

 Similar supplications were offered up in the Mahomedan Musjids, 

 and at the sacred fires of the Parsees. They speak highly in praise 

 of British administration in India. 



Charms, talismans, and magical ceremonies of various de- 

 scriptions, were said to have been practised by different castes, 

 in hopes of producing the same effect. I have formerly observed, 

 that however differently such things may be considered by en- 

 lightened Europeans, they are deemed of the utmost importance 

 by the Asiatics; and, as a case strongly in point, ia modern times, 

 I shall finish the subject of oriental diviners, soothsayers, and 

 sorcerers, of all denominations, with a note from the Hindoo Pan- 

 theon; in which the ingenious and intelligent author, after pre- 

 mising that both Hindoos and Mahomedans have extensive belief 

 in sorcery and witchcraft, relates an anecdote of the late Nizam 

 Ally Khan, at Hydrabad, now the greatest Mahomedan sove- 

 reignty in India. It is detailed in a letter, written from Poonah 

 in January 1798, to a political correspondent, with this very just 

 observation ; " Ridiculous as it may appear, that such folly should 

 have connection with politics, it is nevertheless true, that in this 

 case they were closely combined: operating, or intending to ope- 

 rate, on the permanency of a ministry, the succession to the govern- 

 ment, the influence of the English or French at the court of Hydra- 

 bad ; and, consequently, on many points of great national im- 

 portance. 



" For some time past the Hydrabad newspapers have abounded 



