Narwhal

“ Nourmahal puts her foot into Nasrulla's hand, and he lifts her into the saddle. When she is comfortably seated, he stands beside her and in front of her, back of the horse, leaning against the horse's neck and caressing his shoulder.
King Nasrulla. Now we are on the road, and all the world is moving across the horizon. If it is all a dream, let me be in the dream.
Nourmahal (looking out and away from him and pausing a moment) . Stories! Dreams!—What I have heard is only a whisper, but it seems so true and so beautiful. Somewhere a man loves one woman always and no other. ”

“ When Aziza Nurmahal's father was on his death-bed, Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh, understood that there would be trouble with the Europeans begging and bribing and bullying for “concessions,” with none left of the old clan except a young girl unused to the intrigues of the palace, the mosques, and the bazaars, with the land sure to be torn by civil strife unless a strong man's hand took the helm of the ship of state.
Thus the Hajji had gone to the far places, to Europe, to England, on his mad search for the possessor of the Gengizkhani blade.
“And he found thee, Al Nakia!” ”

“ The chief occupation of the Nāyars is agriculture. Cultivation of a slipshod, time-honoured type is the forte of the Nāyar, for which he has always found time from times of old, though engaged in other occupations as well. In the Velakali, a kind of mock fight, which is one of the items of the utasom programme in every important temple in Malabar, the dress worn by the Nāyars is supposed to be their ancient military costume. ”

“ King Nasrulla. The Lord of the Sky rises to look on the gardens where the nightingales have been singing.
Nourmahal. But when he finds that the nightingales are silent, he passes to other gardens.
King Nasrulla. Following the song, as I follow the lisp of spring in your voice, the flutter of the wings of birds in the branches when buds are swelling.
Nourmahal. It is the flutter of wings and the song that you care for; it is not the bird. ”

“ Aziza Nurmahal!”
His call echoed through the vaulted, white-stuccoed halls where slept the princess' ancestors, from the rough shepherd who, followed by a few thousand yellow-skinned, high-cheeked men on horseback, had swept out of Central Asia, conquering the world from Pekin to the gates of Berlin, to the last male member of the Gengizkhani clan, the princess' father, who had spent a life-time sidestepping the financial traps, the “concessions,” of these same Occidentals whom once his ancestors had subjugated and ruled with rope and flame and scimitar. ”

“ By his side sat the Princess Aziza Nurmahal in a traveling sari of gray- and green-striped muslin, the soft flower of her face “veiled against the inquisitive glances of this stinking Southland,” to quote Mehmet Iddrissy Khan who had bid them good-by on the threshold of his house in the Colootallah. ”

“ And in that world out of the teeming millions of the Dravidian population, akin perhaps in remote ages to the inhabitants of the South Seas, the nobility are the Nairs. Aristocracy they can hardly perhaps be called with propriety, since they themselves do not claim to rule as being best. Rather they derive their nobility, by their own showing, from the fact that they were deemed worthy by the Aryan priests, whom they acknowledge to be the highest of mankind. The Nairs are a community, rather than a caste or tribe, with powers of assimilation. ”

“ Nirmala looked very beautiful today. When I had seen her at the station, wearing an English cape and shoes, I did not like her appearance. Now I saw her in red velvet shoes of Indian make, an orange-coloured sari draped in the new fashion, her plentiful hair gathered into a knot, and adorned with a hill rose of a yellow colour. Nirmala looked very handsome indeed. ”

“ Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the territory of Nipal had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas. The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman conquest of England. ”

“ The poet only thought of doing what somewhere men have done. Here a thousand years are but as yesterday and ten thousand as a watch in the night. I am not I, but an echo of the mad desires of dead men whose dust has been blown across the desert for countless centuries. Why should I not think of my own desires before my dust, too, flies forgotten before the passing caravans?
King Nasrulla. But you are to be my queen. Nothing more can anyone give you in Saranazett.
Nourmahal. And to-morrow or next week your ambassador to the King of the East comes back with letters and pledges of friendship. ”

“ Therefore, Namirrha, it were well for you to live in peace with Zotulla, and well to forget this olden wrong that was done to the beggar-boy Narthos. For the ways of destiny are strange, and the workings of its laws sometimes hidden; and truly, if the hooves of Zotulla's palfrey had not spurned you and trodden you under, your life had been otherwise, and the name and renown of Namirrha had still slept in oblivion as a dream undreamed. ”

“ H. A. Stuart writes † [1] "are a Dravidian caste, or rather a community, for we find several distinct elements with totally different occupations among the people who call themselves by this title. The original Nāyars were undoubtedly a military body, holding lands and serving as a militia, but the present Nāyar caste includes persons who, by hereditary occupation, are traders, artisans, oilmongers, palanquin-bearers, and even barbers and washermen. The fact seems to be that successive waves of immigration brought from the Canarese and Tamil countries different castes and different tribes ”

“ I believe I am correct in saying that the Newar race, the original owners of the Nepal Valley, are not enlisted in the combatant ranks of the army, or at least not in any numbers. This seems strange, as they fought splendidly and for long against the Goorkha kings, and for a great number of years quite held their own against all comers. They are the main representatives of the industrial part of the country. All the wonderful temples, brass work, and carving as seen in the big towns are due to them. ”

“ They are a savage and independent people; it required address to approach them with safety, which, however, I accomplished, (the particulars would take too much room for this place) , was well received, and at perfect liberty to do whatever I pleased. This tribe is called Neardie. Each of the tribe, in the middle between their eyes, has a Greek cross marked with antimony. They are Kabyles. Though living in tribes, they have among the mountains huts, built with mud and straw, which they call Dashkras, whereas the Arabs live in tents on the plains. ”

“ For Namirrha, through the black renown of his thaumaturgies and the frightful entities who served him, had become a power that no secular sovereign dared dispute; and men feared him everywhere, even as they feared the gigantic, shadowy lords of Hell and of outer space. And in Ummaos, people said that he had come on the desert wind from Tasuun with his underlings, even as the pestilence comes, and had reared his house in an hour with the aid of devils beside Zotulla's palace. ”

“ According to the Brāhman tradition, the Nāyar caste is the result of union between the Nambūdris with Dēva, Gandharva and Rakshasa women introduced by Parasurāma; and this tradition embodies the undoubted fact that the caste by its practice of hypergamy has had a very large infusion of Aryan blood. In origin the Nāyars were probably a race of Dravidian immigrants, who were amongst the first invaders of Malabar, and as conquerors assumed the position of the governing and [285] land-owning class. ”

“ N Nala—The pious king of Nishadha, who lost his kingdom through the influence of Kali, the evil spirit, presiding over the Hindu Iron Age. The prince was led to play a game of dice with his wicked brother Pushkara and to keep all his possessions at stake. He was worsted in the game and lost everything. The king was compelled by his brother to repair to the forest with his beloved queen, where he forsook her under the very influence which deprived him of all what he had as his own. ”

“ When they perceive pariahs, they call out to them, even at a great distance, to get out of their way, and, if any one of these unfortunate people approaches too near a Nair, and through inadvertence touches him, the Nair has a right to murder him, which is looked upon as a very innocent action, and for which no complaint is ever made. It is true that the pariahs have one day in the year when all the Nairs they can touch become their slaves, but the Nairs take such precautions to keep out of the way at the time, that an accident of that kind seldom happens. ”

“ This the natives call Narri-comboo, and they aver that this "Jackal's Horn" only grows on the head of the leader of the pack. [2] The Singhalese and the Tamils alike regard it as a talisman, and believe that its fortunate possessor can command by its instrumentality the realisation of every wish, and that if stolen or lost by him, it will invariably return of its own accord. Those who have jewels to conceal, rest in perfect security if along with them they can deposit a Narri-comboo, fully convinced that its presence is an effectual safeguard against robbers. ”

“ For six long years Nurjahân lived at the court as one of the attendants of Jahângir's Râjput mother, refusing any pension from the hand of the man who had killed Sher-Afkân, and supporting herself entirely by her exquisite skill in embroidery and painting.
And then?
It is customary to say that ambition overcame her scruples; but the seeing eye, reading between the lines, may find a womanly pity for the man who in the prime of life had lost all control over himself, and who sorely needed help. ”

“ The Achars who perform this ceremony are called Gulcul, and cannot intermarry with those of the first rank. This inferior order performs also any ceremonies that may be wanted by Newars, who are at a distance from home, and the purity of whose extraction cannot therefore be ascertained. Poor Achars cultivate the land with their own hands, from which they are not deterred by a fear of distressing the ox, as the plough is not used by the Newars. Their women spin and weave, which is the only point in which they seem to differ from the Brahmans ”

“ Inhabitants of other parts of the Nepal kingdom would almost invariably, if asked where they came from, name the district in which their village is situated, the reason for this being that historically the only part of the Nepal kingdom which can lay claim to the name is the actual valley which was the home of the Newars. The owners of the valley before this were conquered by the King of Goorkha and his followers some two hundred years ago, and to this day the greater number of the present inhabitants are of the Newar race. ”

“ They live by the chase, and wield some influence over the ruder forest-folk. These hills abound in the great stone monuments (kistvaens and dolmens) which the ancient non-Aryans erected over their dead. The Nairs, or hillmen of South-Western India, still keep up the old system of polyandry, according to which one woman is the wife of several husbands, and a man's property descends not to his own sons, but to his sister's children. This system also appears among the non-Aryan tribes of the Himalayas at the opposite end of India. ”

“ Centuries of intermarriage with other tribes from an Indian stock have reduced the strong traces of their origin, but a careful sifting of facts and records has proved that the Newars are the aborigines of Nepal. ”

“ Fresh are his tracks, and the young men of your tribe shall follow whence they have come, and finding what Narahdarn has done, swiftly shall they return. Then shall we hold a corrobboree, and if your daughters fell at his hand Narahdarn shall be punished."
The mother of the Bilbers said: "Well have you spoken, oh my relation. Now speed ye the young men lest the rain fall or the dust blow and the tracks be lost." Then forth went the fleetest footed and the keenest eyed of the young men of the tribe. Ere long, back they came to the camp with the news of the fate of the Bilbers. ”

“ Makunda Sen the 2d held Binayakpur Palpa and a great part of Balihang, and was at the head of an alliance of petty chiefs, composed of Gajarkot, Rising, Ghiring, Argha, Khachi, and Gulmi, which last, after a vain attempt at conquest, he was obliged to relinquish. Narabhupal, Raja of Gorkha, had married his aunt, daughter of Gandarbha, and he received kindly at his court his cousin Prithwi Narayan, the son of Narabhupal, while that chief was a young man, very slenderly provided. ”

“ These Nairs live outside the towns separate from other people on their estates which are fenced in. When they go anywhere, they shout to the peasants, that they may get out of the way where they have to pass; and the peasants do so, and, if they did not do it, the Nairs might kill them without penalty. ”

“ Christianity has not been equally successful; and, on our arrival, we found the church reduced to an Italian Padre, and a native Portuguese, who had been inveigled from Patna by large promises, which were not made good, and who would have been happy to have been permitted to leave the country.
These are the various casts of Newars. I shall now give an account of the customs that are common to the whole nation.
All the Newars burn the dead; all eat buffaloes, sheep, goats, fowls, and ducks; and all drink spirituous liquors, to the use of which, indeed, they are excessively addicted. ”