Aida

“ Ida is a name given to the earth, as any lexicon will tell you. Aida—earth-born, is a name which may well be given to a bit of wood, or to terrestrial fire, but cannot, by any stretch of philological legerdemain, be made to apply to the sun. That so eminent a philologist as Professor Max Müller should overlook these considerations, and should also overlook the important fact that on the sun and dawn theory the three embraces cannot be explained, shows how his energetic pursuit of solar allegories into every nook and corner of ancient mythology vitiates his conclusions. ”

“ At regular distances on the road leading to the village, long poles were planted in the ground, from which hung skins, scalps, and other objects offered by the Indians to the Master of Life and the first man.
The Indians made their entrance into the village amid the cheers of the women and children, the barking of dogs, and the deafening clamour of drums, shells, chichikouès, and war whistles. On reaching the square, at a signal from Natah Otann, the band halted, and the noise ceased. An immense fire had been prepared, before which stood an aged chief, still robust and upright. ”

“ Once their children began to die, and they prayed to the goddess to save them; she heard their prayer, and since then she has been held in honour. If possible they make a pilgrimage to her shrine at Calcutta. Their family priests are Kanaujiya Brâhmans, who suffer no degradation by serving them.
Social rules. 11. They will eat with no one but a member of the caste, and object to touch none but a sweeper or Chamâr.
Occupation. 12. The Audhiyas are well known as a dangerous criminal tribe. They deal largely in counterfeit coin and false jewelry: they never commit crimes of violence. ”

“ The ancient city of Amid or Amida, which sometimes assumes the provincial appellation of Diarbekir, is advantageously situate in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city. The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honor of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong walls and lofty towers. ”

“ But what could the interest be which led a delicate woman, accustomed to all the luxurious comforts of life, to undertake a long and perilous journey in order to come and talk with an Indian in a miserable toldería, hidden in the midst of the desert?
On her side, the young woman was a prey to still greater uneasiness, for she was anxious to discover whether, in spite of her neglect of the chief, she had preserved the boundless power she had formerly exercised over that Indian nature, which civilization had softened rather than subdued ”

“ They prefer the title of Ajudhyabâsi, or residents of Ajudhya; by outsiders they are usually called Audhiya, or “Oudh men.” They claim to be really Banyas, and say that they emigrated from Ajudhya; but they have no means of fixing the time of their arrival in Fatehpur. One tradition is that their movement was connected with the expedition of Râma Chandra against Lanka or Ceylon.
Divisions. 2. They are divided into two classes—Ûnch or “high,” and Nîch, or “low.” The former are those of pure blood; the latter, the descendants of a woman of another caste, taken as a concubine. ”

“ The Odiyas of the hills differ, however, from the Odiyas of the plains, the Odiyas of Ganjam from those of Vizagapatam, and the customs of one muttāh (settlement) from those of the next." Mr.Narasing Doss writes to me that "Odiya literally means an inhabitant of Odissa or Orissa. There is a separate caste called Odiya, with several sub-divisions. They are cultivators by profession. Marriage is infant or adult. They employ Brāhmans at ceremonials. Widows and divorcées are remarried. They eat fish and meat, but not fowls or beef, and do not drink liquor. They burn the dead. ”

“ In 1890 there were ascertained to be 375 Audhiyas resident in Cawnpur, and 159 in Fatehpur. The majority of the adult males continue to absent themselves from time to time for the purpose of thieving and uttering false coin in distant places. The Audhiyas are not shown separately in the last Census returns, in which they have probably been included with the Ajudhyabâsi Banyas. ”

“ By the term Kozh, instead of Odoan, the true meaning of it is rather muzzle, or snout, than mouth, a distinction which the French have preserved in the term Guelle.
Aiuinos, a nation of Indians, of the government of Cinaloa, New Spain. They live in the north part of the province. They formerly dwelt in lofty mountains, to escape the effects of war with other nations. In 1624, the Jesuits established a mission amongst them. They are docile, well inclined, and of good habits.
Aiutla, a settlement of New Spain, containing 187 Indian families. ”

“ The Ajitas live in small tribes, consisting of some fifty or sixty individuals. They have no fixed residence, but wander about the country according to the amount of game which they find. They have not the least notion of house-building, and in this respect are even below the aborigines of Australia, and at night they crowd round the fire and lie as close to it as possible. ”

“ The count bowed to his guests and withdrew. Since his meeting with his betrothed he had not exchanged a word with her. In the courtyard he found the Hiaqui Indian smoking and walking lazily around. He went up to him.
"Here," he said, "are the ten piastres promised you."
"Thanks," said the Indian as he took them.
"Now, what are you going to do?"
"Rest myself till tomorrow; then join the men of my tribe." ”

“ The scouts came galloping in one after the other, to report to the governor the approach of the enemy, who, according to their calculations, would reach the presidio of San Lucar that same night.
The masses of Indians increased every moment. Their hordes covered the open; they marched with inconceivable rapidity, and seemed to concentrate all their forces on the luckless pueblo. ”

“ Aouda fastened her great eyes, "clear as the sacred lakes of the Himalaya," upon him; but the intractable Fogg, as reserved as ever, did not seem at all inclined to throw himself into this lake. ”

“ Out of the savage tribe grew up the barbarian village community; and a new, still wider, circle of social customs, habits, and institutions, numbers of which are still alive among ourselves, was developed under the principles of common possession of a given territory and common defence of it, under the jurisdiction of the village folkmote, and in the federation of villages belonging, or supposed to belong, to one stem. And when new requirements induced men to make a new start, they made it in the city, which represented a double network of territorial units (village communities) ”

“ The nearest approach I have ever seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo. ”

“ There were green terraces and porphyry porticoes that leaned to a river on which red galleys passed; there were theatres in which a multitude could jeer at an emperor, and arenas in which an emperor could watch a multitude die; there were bronze doors and garden roofs, glancing villas and temples that defied the sun; there were spacious streets, a Forum curtained with silk, the glint and evocations of triumphal war, the splendor of a host of gods, but it was not all marble; there were rents in the magnificence and tatters in the laticlave of state. ”

“ Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. ”

“ In the recesses of the desolate Libyan mountains that lie behind the temple and city of Abydus, the supposed burying place of the holy Osiris, a tomb was recently discovered, among the contents of which were the papyrus rolls whereupon this history is written. ”

“ Perchance, if I should die without issue, although you are not all royal, although there flows in your veins a blood that Egypt hates; although you could plot the murder of your lord and king, it may be well that when I am gone you should fill my place, for you are brave and of the ancient race on one side, if base-born on the other. But I am not yet dead, and children may still come to me. Abi, will you be a prisoner until Osiris calls me, or will you swear an oath?” ”

“ Have they their worship, like religious beings, and are their midnight lays but the outpouring of the fervency of their spirits? Do they rejoice, like the clouds, in the presence of the moon, hailing her beams as a pleasant relief from the darkness that has surrounded them? Or in the silence of night, are their songs but responses to the sounds of the trees, when they bow their heads and shake their rustling leaves in the wind? When they listen to the streamlet, that makes audible melody only in the hush of night, do they not answer to it from their leafy perch? ”

“ His eager, worn face looks out from the helmet so calmly and so steadily, the flash of his armor, which gleams like real metal, the coal-black horse, which comes forward out of the landscape shaking his head-piece of blood-red plumes against the golden sunset sky and champing the golden bit, the grasp of the lance by the noble rider: well, painting can do no more than that. It is history, poetry, and the beauty of Nature recreated by the grand master. ”

“ The Indians, I was now speaking of, were not content with the common Enemies that lessen and destroy their Country-men, but invented an infallible Stratagem to purge their Tribe, and reduce their Multitude into far less Numbers. ”

“ The lot of the favored guest of an Indian camp or village is idleness without repose, for he is never left alone, with the repletion of incessant and inevitable feasts. ”

“ So long as human nature remains the same, this splendor and pomp of processions, these lighted torches and ornamented churches, this triumphant music and glad holiday of religion will attract more than your plain conventicles, your ugly meeting-houses, and your compromise with the bass-viol. ”

“ And every little spray of leaves that tossed airily in the pleasant breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures of unlimited action. ”

“ Ariadne is in the foreground, full of warm, breathing life, her arm thrown over her lovely head, and her golden hair falling over the vase of gold and onyx on which she rests; a river of red wine runs through the emerald grass; two beautiful girls have just put by their music and instruments, and one turns her exquisite face toward us to speak to the other reclining on the grass. The one who turns to us is the beauty of the Louvre, or some one very like her, in full Venetian loveliness. ”

“ The sun blistered their naked skins and seemed to laugh at their God, while the Venus in her cool grot sent them wreathéd smiles, bidding them worship her and forget their pale faith. And the two flutes made dreamy music that sent into the porches of the ear a silvery, feverish mist. Breathless the lovers gazed at the shimmering goddess. The vast, silent throng questioned them with its glance. Suddenly they were seen to shudder, and Diocletian rose to his feet rending his garments. ”

“ Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs of hope and gladness. ”

“ The idea became rooted in my mind that I had a special right to Surabala above that of people in general. So it happened that, in the pride of ownership, at times I punished and tormented her; and she, too, fagged for me and bore all my punishments without complaint. The village was wont to praise her beauty; but in the eyes of a young barbarian like me that beauty had no glory;—I knew only that Surabala had been born in her father's house solely to beat my yoke, and that therefore she was the particular object of my neglect. ”

“ The object of greatest solicitude should be to break down the prejudices of tribe among the Indians; to blot out the boundary lines which divide them into distinct nations, and fuse them into one homogeneous mass. Uniformity of language will do this -- nothing else will. ”

“ At nightfall the uproar lessens, and as the evening wanes, the unaccustomed sounds diminish, though till midnight, ever and anon, the tired and sleepy citizens are startled from their dreams by whoops, hurrahs, snatches of songs, and outbursts of rude laughter ringing through the frosty air and mingling with the clattering of horses' feet and the whirring rumble of swift-revolving wheels, as some party of roystering blades, excited by deep potations, drive shouting homewards from the village inns. ”

“ And above all, don't let us forget India, the cradle of the human race, or at least of that part of it to which we belong, where first Mohammedans, and then Christians, were most cruelly infuriated against the adherents of the original faith of mankind. The destruction or disfigurement of the ancient temples and idols, a lamentable, mischievous and barbarous act, still bears witness to the monotheistic fury of the Mohammedans, carried on from Marmud, the Ghaznevid of cursed memory, down to Aureng Zeb, the fratricide, whom the Portuguese Christians have zealously imitated by destruction of temples and the auto de fé of the inquisition at Goa. ”