But if to the existing number of your suntoshums—­the jewels that hang on the Mem Sahib’s bosom—­a man-child is added, ah, then there is merry-making in the verandas, and happy salaaming on the stairs; and in the fulness of his Hindoo Sary-Gampness, which counts the Sahib blessed that hath “his quiver full of sich,” he says, Ap-ki kullejee kaisa burri ho-jaga!  Khoda rukho ki beebi-ka kullejee bhee itni burri hoga,—­Gurreeb-purwan! “How large my lord’s liver is about to grow!  God grant to the Mem Sahib, my exalted lady, a liver likewise large,—­O favored protector of the poor!” The happiness and honors which should follow upon the birth of a male child being figuratively comprehended in that enlargement of the liver whence comes the good digestion for which alone life is worth the living.

Many and grievous perils do environ baby-life by the Ganges,—­perils of dry nurses, perils by wolves, perils by crocodiles, perils by the Evil Eye, perils by kidnappers, perils by cobras, perils by devils.

You are living at one of the up-country stations, where the freer air of the jungle imparts to babes and sucklings a voracious appetite.  Besides your own dhye, brought from Calcutta, there is not another wet-nurse to be had, for love or money.  Immediately Dhye strikes for higher wages.  The Baba Sahib, she says, has defiled her rice; yesterday he put his foot into her curry; to-day he washes the monkey’s tail in her consecrated lotah.  What shall she do? she has lost caste; the presents to the Brahmins, that her reinstatement will cost her, will consume all her earnings from the beginning. Gurreeb-purwan, O munificent and merciful! what shall she do?  She strikes for higher wages.—­But you are hard-hearted and hard-headed; you will not pay,—­by Gunga, not another pice! by Latchtmee, not one cowry more!—­Oh, then she will leave; with a heavy heart she will turn her back on the blessed baby; she will pour dust upon her head before the Mem Sahib, at whose door her disgrace shall lie, and she will return to her kindred.—­Not she! the durwan, grim and incorruptible, has his orders; she cannot pass the gate.  Oho! then immediately she dries up; no “fount,” and Baby famishing.  You try ass’s milk; it does not agree with Baby; besides, it costs a rupee a pint.  You try a goat; she does not agree with Baby, for she butts him treacherously, and, leaping over his prostrate body, scampers, like Leigh Hunt’s pig in Smithfield Market, up all manner of figurative streets.  Then you send for Dhye, and say, “Milk, or I shave your head!” Milk or death!  And, lo, a miracle!—­the “fount” again!—­Baby is saved.

What was, then, the conjuration and the mighty magic?  In the folds of her saree the dhye conceals leaves of chambeli, the Indian jessamine, roots of dhallapee, the jungle radish.  She chews the chambeli, and hungry Baby, struggling for the “fount,” is insulted with apples of Sodom; she swallows a portion of dhallapee, and he is regaled as with the melting melons of Ceylon.