At Length, The Carriage
Stopped At A Gateway, And Upon Alighting, I Found Myself In The Midst
Of A Crowd Of Little Children - An Infant School, In Fact, Composed
Indiscriminately Of Boys And Girls.
They were, generally speaking,
very pretty, and all well-dressed, many being adorned with very
handsome jewels.
The pedagogue - a Parsee, and rather a young man - with the barbarity
common to his class, was in the act of inflicting corporal punishment
upon a poor little creature, whom he beat upon the feet (ornamented,
by the way, with rich anclets) with a rod of split bamboo. I commanded
him to forbear, but speaking half in English and half in Hindustanee,
made myself better understood by look and gesture than by words. The
unhappy infant seemed to know that I interfered in its behalf, for
it gazed upon me with a piteous but grateful expression; it could not
have been more than three years old, and was really very pretty
and interesting in its tears. It was evidently the child of wealthy
parents, being dressed in a silk shirt embroidered and trimmed with
silver, a cap of the same upon its head, and numerous jewels besides.
The whole of the Lilliputian assembly uttered their lesson as I
passed, all raising their voices at the same time, and rendering it, I
imagine, rather difficult to determine whether each pupil repeated his
or her part correctly.
I would fain have lingered for a few minutes, but my attendants
officiously showing the way, I walked across a paved yard and up two
flights of steps to the shop of which I came in search, which was kept
by a good-looking Parsee.
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