whither Gurameer soon follows her.  On making his father acquainted with his attachment, the latter endeavours to persuade him to overcome it, and informs him that Veenah’s father is avaricious, and a bigot, and hence, that he would probably be prejudiced against him, owing to some imputations which had been cast on Gurameer’s religious creed, and industriously circulated by his old enemy, Balty Mahu, who proves to be the cousin of Veenah These considerations prevail upon Gurameer to defer any application to Veenah’s father, until the suspicions regarding his faith had either died away or been falsified by his scrupulous observance of all religious duties.  This resolution he determines to communicate to his mistress.  Accordingly, in the evening, he betakes himself to the quarter of the city where Veenah’s father lives; and, walking to and fro before the house, soon discovers that he is recognised.  By a cord, let down from the window, he conveys a letter to her, which, the following evening, she answers; and thus a regular correspondence was kept up, which, by the exercise it afforded to their imaginations, and the difficulties attendant upon it, inflamed their passion to the highest pitch.  He had, however, soon the misfortune to be discovered by Balty Mahu, and, in consequence, Veenah is debarred from pen and ink, but contrives to acquaint her lover that their intercourse has been discovered, by a short note, written with a burnt stick.  Gurameer now goes in despair to Veenah’s father, from whom he experiences a haughty repulse, and who, in the following night, secretly leaves the city, with his daughter, embarking on the Ganges, and taking measures to prevent the discovery of the place of his retreat.  At the expiration of two or three months, an end is put to Gurameer’s doubts and apprehensions, by his return, with his daughter and son-in-law—­a rich Omrah, four times her age.  After the first ebullitions of rage have subsided, his love returns; but he is never able to succeed in obtaining an interview with Veenah.  By his cousin Fatima, he learns the circumstances of Veenah’s marriage, and the deceptions which had been practised on her, aided by the unbounded authority which parents exercise in eastern countries.  The unhappy Veenah, as firm in her principles as she was gentle in disposition, refuses to see him.  “Tell him,” said she, “that Heaven has forbidden it, and to its decrees we are bound to submit I am now the wife of another, and it is our duty to forget all that is past.  But if this be possible, my heart tells me it can be only by our never meeting!”

Gurameer now fell into a state of settled melancholy, and consented to travel, more for the purpose of pleasing his parents, than from any concern for his own health; but travelling had little effect—­“he carried a barbed arrow in his heart; and the greater the efforts to extract it, the more they rankled the wound.”  When so much emaciated that he was not expected to live a month, he took a voyage,