Glimpses of Bengal Life

Khullanii was un- justly abused by the kinsmen of Dhanapati for tending sheep in the pastoral fields of Ujani, the alternatives proposed by the relations of the merchant for vindicating her character and keeping up her social prestige bein vb. ; either the payment of a lakh of rupees by Dhanapati to the merchants assembled in his house, or Khullana's passing through the fire- ordeal to prove the in [...] Yet the Emperor of Gour persisted and declared that unless he accomplished the feat, he would be sentenced to death ; for the monarch was con- vinced that the son of Ranja (Lau Sen) possessed, by the graCe of the God Dharma, great occult powerl and that he alone could show the extra- ordinary phenomenon of the sun rising from the west to the people of Gour, if he anly_ wished it. [...] was 46 his duty to beat the drum from the south, evening and morning, and on the day in question, when he carne to his duty, he suddenly saw the western pastures and fields aglow with the golden rays of the sun, the stream of the Ganges known as the Bhairava that ran by the west, became crested with golden ripples and the sunrise was simply wonderful, for the sun, contrary to what had been seen si [...] Hundreds of copies of the small poem of DAM Karna in which the hero with a saw assisted by his wife cuts the head of their son for the sake of a vow, are to be found in the houses of the rustics. [...] Jaynarayan Sen, who lifed. in the middle of the 18th centuisy, des- cribes the Police-activities for the detection of a theft in the royal palace in the following way :— " Female spies and informers entered the inner apartments of people in various chsguises. "Some of the Police spies dressed themselves as ascetics and wandered in the streets.