90 COLONEL T. HOLBEIN HENDLEY, C.I.E., ON BESEMBLANCES 
a disciple or pupil) and bandis or female slaves or hereditary 
domestics, whose fortunes are bound up with those of the 
family in which they serve. When a daughter of the house is 
married young chelas and bandis accompany her to her new 
home, and are married at the same time as herself to the 
handmaids and boys who are in a similar position in her 
husband’s family. It must be remembered that in an Indian 
conjoined family the pleasures and sorrows, the feastings and 
the privations are shared by all, and thus the evils attending the 
condition of the servants are much modified or mitigated. 
Allowing for differences of rank and position in those respects 
all were very much alike. 
The present Maharaja of Jeypore, who in his early days was 
far from prosperous, told me that when he himself suffered 
many privations, his chelas never felt them. It was a point of 
honour to ensure their comfort before his own. The position 
of men of this class is similar to that of Eliezer, the steward 
of Abraham, “ in whose hands were all the goods of his 
master.” Amongst the Mohamedans there were dynasties of 
slave kings as, for example, that which ruled from 1206 to 1287 
at Delhi from Kulb-ud-din-Aybak, the general of Mohamad 
Ghori, onwards ; and in the time of the Bahmani kings in the 
Deccan, who were dispossessed of part of their dominions by 
the descendants of one Bidar, who sprang from a Georgian 
slave. They ruled from 1492 to 1609. Are not also most of 
the Sultans of Turkey the sons of slavewomen ? In Persia 
we have the Tahirlds of Khorasan who were of slave origin. 
In that country many men of the slave class still arrive at 
great honour. The position of slavewomen everywhere is by 
no means so satisfactory, nor does it appear to have been much 
better amongst the Jews. In India, however, it is com- 
paratively easy in our time for all persons of this class to 
escape if they wish to do so. Josephus notes a common cause 
of slavery. He says that if a man could not pay the fine to 
which he was condemned for stealing cattle, etc., he became 
servant to him to whom he was adjudged to pay it for six 
years. If he had a son by a woman servant in his master’s 
house he might, if he willed, remain servant still until the 
year of Jubilee, when he could also take away his wife and 
children. 
One of the most persistent of all beliefs in the East is that 
of firm confidence in the existence and powers of witches, 
wizards, charmers, and astrologers. The following are some of 
the Biblical texts which relate to the subject. (Exod. xxv, 18) : 
