a
sort of short chemises, silver-bangled as to their wrists and ankles,
and already with the caste-mark on the foreheads of some of them,--shy,
demure younglings, just learning all the awful significance of the word
_Sahib_, who have been brought from mysterious homes by fond ayahs, and
smuggled in through back-stairs influence, or boldly introduced by the
durwan under the glorifying patronage of that terrible Hastings Clive.

Back of all are Dhobee, the washerman, and Dirzce, the tailor, and
Mehter, the sweeper, and Mussalehee, the torch-boy, and Metranee, the
scullion,--and all the rest of the household riff-raffry. There is much
clapping of hands, and happy wah-wah-ing, wherefrom you conclude that
Hastings Clive's birth-day is at least one good result of his being born
at all.

The Sahib baba-logue have a lively share in several of the native
festivals. The Hoolee, for instance, is their high carnival of fun,
when they pelt their elders and each other with the red powder of the
_mhindee_, and repel laughing assaults with smart charges of rose-water
fired from busy little squirts. During the illumination of the Duwallee,
they receive from the servants presents of fantastic toys, and search
in the compounds by moonlight for the flower of the tree that never
blossoms, and for the soul of a snake, whence comes to the finder good
luck for the rest of his life.

These are the traditional sports of the baba-logue; but they are
ingenious in inventing others, wherein, from time to time, the imitative
faculty, of the native child especially, is tragically manifested.

When the Nawab, Shumsh-ud-deen, was hung at Delhi for hiring a _sowar_
to assassinate Mr. Fraser, the British Commissioner, the country
population round about were seized with the news as with the coming of
a dragon or a destroying army; and the British Lion was the Bogy, the
Black Douglas, in whose name poor _ryots'_ wives scared refractory brats
into trembling obedience. Not far from Delhi was a village school, where
were many small boys,--so many Asiatic frogs-in-a-well,--to whom "the
news of the day" was full of terrible portent. Once, when they were
tired of foot-ball, and the shuttlecock had grown heavy on their
hands, the cry was, "What shall we play next?" And one daring little
fellow--whose father had been to Delhi with his rent, and had told
how the Nawab met his _kismut_ (his fate) so quietly, that the
gold-embroidered slippers did not fall from hi