heir merits as a people
must be a continual theme of praise; for I know not how an English
establishment could be concluded with any degree of comfort without these
most useful domestics. But I have allowed my pen to stray from the subject
of female seclusion, and will here bring that part of my history to a
close in very few words.

Those females who rank above peasants or inferior servants, are disposed
from principle to keep themselves strictly from observation; all who have
any regard for the character or the honour of their house, seclude
themselves from the eye of strangers, carefully instructing their young
daughters to a rigid observance of their own prudent example. Little girls,
when four years old, are kept strictly behind the purdah, and when they
move abroad it is always in covered conveyances, and under the
guardianship of a faithful female domestic, who is equally tenacious us
the mother to preserve the young lady's reputation unblemished by
concealing her from the gaze of men.

The ladies of zeenahnah life are not restricted from the society of their
own sex; they are, as I have before remarked, extravagantly fond of
company, and equally as hospitable when entertainers. To be alone is a
trial to which they are seldom exposed, every lady having companions
amongst her dependants; and according to her means the number in her
establishment is regulated. Some ladies of rank have from two to ten
companions, independent of slaves and domestics; and there are some of the
Royal family at Lucknow who entertain in their service two or three
hundred female dependants, of all classes. A well-filled zeenahnah is a
mark of gentility; and even the poorest lady in the country will retain a
number of slaves and domestics, if she cannot afford companions; besides
which they are miserable without society, the habit of associating with
numbers having grown up with infancy to maturity: 'to be alone' is
considered, with women thus situated, a real calamity.

On occasions of assembling in large parties, each lady takes with her a
companion besides two or three slaves to attend upon her, no one expecting
to be served by the servants of the house at which they are visiting. This
swells the numbers to be provided for; and as the visit is always for
three days and three nights (except on Eades, when the visit is confined
to one day), some forethought must be exercised by the lady of the house,
that all may be accommodated in such