Birbal

“ Birbal bowed with a half-disdainful sweep of both hands.
"Those who know Âtma Devi as the daughter--the daughter only--of her dead father, may disclaim her right of succession. Birbal does nothing so--so unnecessary! Akbar has no need of your pedigrees to-day, madam! The King listens to no one--not even to your servant! Let the lady pass out again, ushers!"
For an instant Âtma hesitated. Then her eyes sought the rebeck player's and Birbal's followed hers instinctively. There was nothing unusual in the musician's thin face save its excessive pallor ”

“ He passed lightly to the parapet, and sate on it dangling his legs "Padré Rudolfo, the Jesuit, hath it," he continued, "that I am the fool who saith 'There is no God'; but Birbal propounds no such proposition. He hath an open mind. His very errand here this night, my sister, shows--shall we say credulity? I come, sister, for thy rebeck player. I need him."
"Wherefore?" asked Âtma quickly.
Birbal's mouth quivered cynically. "Shall I say the King desires him, sister? Nay! I will not lie. I want him, because of a talisman stone he wears around his neck. ”

“ As they passed on, Birbal paused a moment beside Abulfazl to whisper in his ear:
"The Bârha hawks are in. Hast news of them?"
The Diwan nodded: "The King sees them at audience to-day to consider----"
Birbal interrupted with a bitter laugh: "Before God, Abul," he said, with his habitual shrug of the shoulders, "when the Most-Excellent thinks of himself as Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith, he is too excellent for this world. Better sure a little injustice than that the King should back on himself. It is not time for weakness. ”

“ But Birbal was more vehement. "It is more than chance; it is certainty. I have my finger on the pulse of the people. Already it beats irregularly. Had I but the power----"
"Peace! Birbal," said the King, sternly. "Thou hast it not!" Then turning to William Leedes he continued as if nothing had been said. "And the next?"
The jeweller pointed to the mathematical diagrams at which he had been working.
"That is as fate and figures will have it, my liege. I labour to lose as little as may be."
Akbar's eyes twinkled, he gave a boyish laugh. "For fear of cutting out the King's luck? Lo! ”

“ Stay! up yonder where the steps might begin, a twinkling light. Was it some other bereaved woman coming to place her remembrance on the water's edge--or was it the messenger? By heaven! it bore to the left--just a twinkling light, no more. Birbal held his breath. And now, grown nearer, the faint circle of radiance showed a hand holding a little platter of offerings, and on the wrist a fold not of white but red drapery.
By all that was holy, Âtma Devi! ”

“ Dost hear, Maheshwar Rao? Does Akbar need aught? Stands his honour firm? Lo! if thou speakest not, I die!"
The sword's point clattered on the brick roof, she snatched the death dagger of her race from its altar and stood ready to strike.
"Nay! sister," replied Birbal coolly, for the very heat of her harangue had given him time for calm. "There is no need to die--yet." Here, in a flash, a sudden thought came to him and he settled himself back on the parapet with a faint laugh. ”

“ If thou couldst find out----"
"There is no need," said Âtma slowly; "she--she will not swear!"
Birbal was on his feet with a laugh. "A woman will swear anything for one she loves or hates, and Siyah Yamin hates the King. Whether she love Jamâl-ud-din is another matter. So fare thee well, Âtma Devi championess of Kings. Lo! I have given thee thy Châran chance. As for the rebeck player--I shall find him yet!"
After Birbal left, Âtma sate thinking. There was something which she remembered about Siyâla, which little Siyâla, the darling of the Gods, must remember also. ”

“ And now had come this dishonour of degenerate heirs; for what use was there in dissociating Salîm from Murâd, Murâd from Danyâl? His sons were all alike--were they indeed his sons, these dissolute drinking louts?
He paced the tent almost in despair. Pride, anger, love, justice, tearing at his heart.
Yes, he must go! He must leave his City of Heirship for ever. He must cast off earthly shackles and live only for the immortal dream.
Birbal's slim figure stealing through the curtains roused him to instant anger, almost as instant patience ”

“ Brahmin-born," he said.
Birbal's whole expression changed. "Not at the All-Embracing One, for sure; but for the little brass god-lings."
Tôdar Mull edged away nervously. "Let be--let be! Râjah Sahib. Each for his own belief, and the Almighty's curse lodge on the hindmost, so it be not me! Now go I to the statistic makers; for see you, without figures man is lost in this world."
They parted company, and Birbal looked after the retreating Finance Minister with a frown. ”

“ But now, I passed that hell-doomed cur Khodadâd, and he smiled at me--at me, his bitterest enemy! So he is content. Some plot is afoot, and the foundation of all plots is the Prince Salîm--they seek to oust Akbar and place the drunken lout, slave to his own passions and so slave to theirs, upon the King's throne."
Âtma laughed scornfully. "That will they never do--my Lord the King hath too many friends."
"And too many enemies, also," retorted Birbal. "Fool thou dost not see, thou dost not understand--thou art but a woman of whom men expect naught!" ”

“ The words rang out through the maze of arches in the Diwan-i-Khas. Then there was silence, till on the silence the King's laugh rang out. "Look not so solemn, friends--and foes mayhap!--Akbar, like all things else is in the hands of Fate."
But as Birbal went out with Abulfazl, he cursed and swore. "Aye!" he assented "'tis true enough. All things are in the hands of Fate; but wherefore should the King be in the hands of his enemies? They will strain every nerve----"
"'Tis but for a short time--from dawn to dawn." put in Abulfazl consolingly, "and we must strain every nerve also." ”

“ Piled baskets of green-skinned melons, red earthenware pots of milk, creaking wains of corn. For them life was simple, untouched by the imagination of either evil or good. For them even the gossip of their town-bred neighbours was unreal, fantastic.
"What would I do, pandar," replied the courtesan slowly, her eyes brightening in measure with her words, her voice gaining strength from her evil fancies, "If I believed that the Luckstone of Akbar brought luck as thou dost, it should be mine! Stay! It should be mine and bring discredit on the beast Birbal to whose charge 'tis given. Hold! ”

“ Birluri was of the Goala caste and Birbanta of the oilman’s caste. And this is the story of their fight.
Birluri was very rich, with great herds of cattle and buffaloes but Birbanta’s wealth consisted in tanks and ponds. Birluri used every day to water his cattle at Birbanta’s ponds: and this made Birbanta very angry: he felt it an injustice that though Birluri was so rich he would not dig his own ponds: so he sent word that Birluri must stop watering his cattle or he would be killed. ”

“ In fine, on receiving this order, he took the direction whence the sound of her weeping proceeded; and the king also, after dressing himself in black, followed him secretly, for the purpose of observing his courage. In this interval Birbar arrived there. What does he behold in the burning-ground, but a beautiful woman, lavishly decked with jewels from head to foot, crying aloud and bitterly! ”

“ THE BUFFALO AND THE SKUNK When the Philippinos tell you now of the swagger of the Spaniards, which was the sorest of the sorrows that drove them into revolt, they often mention that the Spaniards called them “water buffaloes.”
“To call you geese would have been kind in comparison?”
“Oh, quite polite!”
Indeed the water buffalo known to us in Burma, also, is not smart at all. Slow, heavy and dull, amphibious in his habits, he moves like a very fat pig, with almost less agility. Slipping through the muddy slush, in the sleekness of his prime, he looks almost “like a whale?” ”

“ Apparently tetrogallus himalayensis, the Himalayan snow-cock (Blandford, iv, 143) .Burnes (Cabool p. 163) describes the kabg-i-darī as the rara avis of the Kābul Kohistān, somewhat less than a turkey, and of the chikor (partridge) species. It was procured for him first in Ghūr-bund, but, when snow has fallen, it could be had nearer Kābul. Bābur’s bū-qalamūn may have come into his vocabulary, either as a survival direct from Greek occupation of Kābul and Panj-āb, or through Arabic writings. ”

“ MS. as “rāsū, which is the weasel of Tartary” (Erskine) . Rāsū is an Indian name for the squirrel Sciurus indicus. The kīsh, with which Bābur’s nūl is compared, is explained by de C. as belette, weasel, and by Steingass as a fur-bearing animal; the fur-bearing weasel is (Mustelidae) putorius ermina, the ermine-weasel (Blanford, p. 165) , which thus seems to be Bābur’s kīsh. The alternative name Bābur gives for his nūl, i.e. mūsh-i-khūrma, is, in India, that of Sciurus palmarum, the palm-squirrel (G. of I. i, 227) ; this then, it seems that Bābur’s nūl is. ”

“ It is in the Nijr-aū mountains of the countries of Kābul, and in the mountains lower down but it is not found higher up. People tell this wonderful thing about it:—When the birds, at the onset of winter, descend to the hill-skirts, if they come over a vineyard, they can fly no further and are taken. God knows the truth! The flesh of this bird is very savoury.
The partridge (durrāj) 1783 is another. This is not peculiar to Hindūstān but is also in the Garm-sīr countries1784; as however some kinds are only in Hindūstān, particulars of them are given here. ”

“ Unable to obtain one alive, we startled the solitude of the wilderness with a gun-shot, and secured the body of a brown-breasted, scarlet-headed and crimson-winged bird, the eastern bulbul. The Arabs call a pretty bird a bulbul, but Sherîf , who was with me in the boat, insisted upon it that it was the specific name of the bird we had killed. ”

“ There’s somebody killed or hurt by buffaloes every year in Burma.”
“The glory of a buffalo is his horns. It would be wrong, because it would not be natural to blunt them. We would never do it unless we could not help it, when a particular beast is bad.” ”

“ The domestic buffalo is apparently derived from the wild buffalo (Bubalus arni, Jerd.; Bos bubalus, Blanf.) , whose favourite habitat is in the swampy sites of the Sunderbunds and Eastern Bengal, but whose haunts extend north-eastward to the head of the Assam valley, in the Terai west to Oudh, and south nearly to the Godavery; not beyond this in the Peninsula, though the animal is found in the north and north-east of Ceylon.
The domestic buffalo exists not only in India but in Java, Sumatra, and Manilla, in Mazanderan, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Adherbijan, Egypt, Turkey, and Italy. ”

“ Such lore might make a quaint and curious volume, but we shall consider only the more striking uses and traditions of the bison in their relation to the life of the early West.
The buffalo was, in truth, the great political factor among the tribes; nearly all of the bitter warfare between nation and nation was for no other purpose than to maintain or gain the right to hunt in favourable fields. Thus the Judith Basin, the region of the Musselshell and many other haunts of the herds, became also battle fields of bloodshed and death. ”

“ Even the sharp weaver birds detect no enemy—much less their allies the buffaloes. A few white egrets, apparently as fearless of the great quadrupeds as the buffalo birds, add beauty to the scene. Some of these charming herons, too, are perched upon the buffalo, their snowy plumes contrasting sharply with the sombre hides of their gigantic friends. ”

“ To his heels were fastened several wolves' tails, the distinguishing mark of renowned warriors. Round his loins was a belt of elk hide, through which passed his knife, his pipe and his medicine bag. His neck was adorned by a collar of grizzly bear claws and buffalo teeth. Finally, a magnificent robe of a white female buffalo hide, painted red inside, was fastened to his shoulders, and fell down behind him like a cloak. In his right hand he held a fan formed of a single eagle's wing, and in his left hand an American rifle. ”

“ By this device Bārān people catch the many herons from which they take the turban-aigrettes sent from Kābul for sale in Khurāsān.
Of bird-catchers there is also the band of slave-fowlers, two or three hundred households, whom some descendant of Tīmūr Beg made migrate from near Multān to the Bārān.861 Bird-catchingFol. 143. is their trade; they dig tanks, set decoy-birds862 on them, put a net over the middle, and in this way take all sorts of birds. Not fowlers only catch birds, but every dweller on the Bārān does it, whether by shooting the cord, setting the springe, or in various other ways. ”

“ I trust I have said sufficient to enable any man, woman, or suffragette to recognise a noisy black bulbul, and, as the distribution of each species is well defined and does not overlap that of the other species, the fact that a bird is found in any particular place at once settles the question of its species. The South Indian bird occurs only in Ceylon and the hills of South-west India; hence Jerdon called this species the Nilgiri or Ghaut black bulbul. Men of science in their wisdom have given the Himalayan bird the sibilant name of Hypsipetes psaroides. ”

“ The magnificent dark brown frontlet and beard of the buffalo, the shaggy coat of hair upon the neck, hump, and shoulders, terminating at the knees in a thick mass of luxuriant black locks, to say nothing of the dense coat of finer fur on the body and hindquarters, give to our species not only an apparent height equal to that of the gaur, but a grandeur and nobility of presence which are beyond all comparison amongst ruminants. ”