“In one of our vacations, my father allowed me to visit a brother of his, who lived in the country, about thirty miles from Benares.  My uncle had two sons, of nearly my own age, and several daughters.  With the former I rode, played chess, and engaged in such sports as are not forbidden to my profession; but my female cousins I seldom saw, as they rarely left their Zenana, into which I was not permitted to enter.  I was of an age to be desirous of becoming better acquainted with my female cousins, especially after I learnt that they then had as guests, a lady and her daughter, who had come to pass some weeks here during the absence of her husband, then employed in some public mission to Calcutta.  But it was only now and then that I had been able to catch a transient and distant view of these females, during the first week after my arrival; and the little I saw, served but to increase my curiosity.  Chance, however, soon afforded me the means of gratifying it.

“An important festival in our calendar was now approaching, and preparations were made to celebrate it in various modes, and, amongst others, by a fight between a royal tiger and an elephant.  For several days all was bustle and confusion in my uncle’s family.  Howdahs, newly gilded and painted, were provided for the elephants—­new caparisons for the horses—­new liveries for the attendants—­cloth and silk, of the richest dyes and hues, united with a profusion of gold and silver ornaments, to dazzle the eye with their varied splendour.  This was one of those exhibitions, which those who were intended for the priesthood, were prohibited from attending.  I confess, when I witnessed these showy and costly preparations, and pictured to myself the magnificent scene for which they were intended—­those formidable animals contending in mortal conflict—­the thousands of gaily dressed spectators, gazing in breathless anxiety,—­I repined at my lot, and regretted I had not been born in a condition which, though of less dignity, would not have cut me off from some of the most exquisite pleasures of life.  At length the important day arrived, and I found my mortification so acute, that I determined to withdraw myself, as much as I could, from a scene that I could not witness without pain.  Among my acquirements at college, was a knowledge of your language; and I had now begun to take the liveliest interest in its beautiful fictions, which I greatly preferred to ours, as being more true to nature, and as exhibiting women in characters at once lovely, pure, and elevated.  I was then reading “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and had reached the middle of that interesting tale, on the morning of the festival, when my tranquillity was interrupted in the way I have mentioned.  Accordingly, taking my book and English dictionary, I retired to a small summer-house at the foot of the garden, and determined to remain there till the cavalcade had set out.  It was some time before I could fix my attention on what I read; but after a while, the interest the book had previously excited returned, and I became at length so engrossed by the incidents of the story, as to forget the festival, the procession, the tiger, and the elephant, as much as if they had never before entered my head.