Vellenaux - A Novel by Edmund William Forrest
page 106 of 234 (45%)
page 106 of 234 (45%)
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The Hooley, the most revolting of all Hindoo Festivals, draws together
an immense concourse of people. Large fires are made on the sides of the public streets and liquid dye stuffs, with every description of filth is thrown by the Hindoos on each other, and should any unfortunate Hindoo woman show herself in the street on these occasions, she is assaulted with language of the most obscene and disgusting nature. These festivals have of late years been curtailed by the Government, and now seldom last more than two days--that is, in large cities containing European communities--but in native towns it is still of many days duration. Accounts of these and other native ceremonies, together with the horrors of the black hole, experienced by Europeans, nearly one hundred years since at the suggestion of the native princes, had been related to Edith by her Moonshee Ayah, but their dominion, or power for good or evil, has now passed away, and Calcutta of the present day is one of the pleasantest and finest cities to the European to be found throughout our Indian possessions. And were it not for the great change in her position, from absolute affluence to becoming the recipient of another's bounty, Edith would have been, if not quite happy, at least contented. Yet it must not be imagined that she was ungrateful or the less thankful to her kind protectors, the Bartons, for she could now well realize what might have been her situation had she been compelled to act upon the plan that had first suggested itself to her on leaving Vellenaux--that of becoming a governess or companion to some antiquated Dowager in Europe. The repeated assurances from Mrs. Barton that she would, at no distant period, secure a brilliant alliance, fell coldly on her ear, but she made no ostentative demonstration of her own ideas on the subject, but |
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