Meer Hassan Ali, B.: Observations on the Mussulmauns of India: descriptive of their manners, customs, habits, and religious opinions ; made during a twelve years residence in their immediate Society (Band 1) (London, 1832)

314 HAPPINESS OF THE

forming the several ordinances which they
have been instructed by their parents or hus-
bands to observe. If there be any merit in
obeying the injunctions of their Lawgiver, those
whom I have known most intimately, deserve
praise since " they are faithful in that they
profess."

To ladies accustomed from infancy to con-
finement this is by no means irksome; they
have their employments and their amusements,
and though these are not exactly to our taste,
nor suited to our mode of education, they are not
the less relished by those for whom they were
invented. They perhaps wonder equally at
some of our modes of dissipating time, and
fancy we might spend it more profitably. Be
that as it may, the Mussulmaun ladies, with
whom I have been long intimate, appear to me
always happy, contented, and satisfied with the
seclusion to which they were born; they desire
no other, and I have ceased to regret they cannot
be made partakers of that freedom of intercourse
with the world, we deem so essential to our hap-
piness, since their health suffers nothing from
that confinement, by which they are preserved

L