be hereinafter cited), and then accompanied the Sheikh to his tent, where the marriage was celebrated; and lie told me there certain wonderful secrets in reference to the further preparation of the strange material composing the reflective surfaces of the curious Bhatts, which, while exceedingly mystic and effective, at the hands and offices of the newly married people, is yet of so singular and delicate a nature as not to be admissible to these pages; for while really of the most holy and sacred nature, yet the miseducation—in certain vital respects and knowledges—of the civilized Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon, and Latin races, would render the matters to which I allude subjects of either not well-based blushes or outright mirth.[1] … Seven long months after these memorable experiences, I parted with three of my then comrades, and, accompanied by two others, embarked on one of the steamers of the Messageries Imperiales, from Bombay, homeward bound. Before I left, one of my friends had sold his commission in consequence of having fallen heir to an uncle's estate, who, the letters of recall stated, had died in England, on Oct. 10th, and not on the 11th, as the ovoid had stated! It had actually taken the differences of Latitude, and was correct to an hour! The second man, on arrival in England, proved the truth of the mirror, for Jane, not 'Jem' as the glass stated, and Davison, not 'David'—cousins of his—had fallen on a lottery-fortune of over a lac of rupees in India money! The other officer was promoted in consequence of the death of his lieutenant-colonel, in a skirmish in the Punjaub, which event was the result of a shot in the loins, not the side. Arrived at home, I found my people in deep mourning for my younger sister, the widow—after a wifehood of less than a year—of Capt. II.—of Her Majesty's Navy, whom she had met for the first time only a few months before their marriage. I had left for India five years before. and though I had often heard of my brother-in-law's family, yet we had never met. He went down in one of the new crack iron-clads on her trial-trip. The awful news occasioned premature motherhood; she died, and her remains were deposited in the hillside
- ↑ Exactly the reason why I have been unable to find a single true adept or adapt in the U. S. A.—P. B. R.
