But although the conception is poetical, to one who has lived many years in the East, it appears a conception, not a description of the real hareem life, even among the noble and wealthy of those lands. The following anecdote may be given us the other side of the picture. The writer was a witness of the scene, and he offers it as a consolation to those of his fair sisters, who, in the midst of the troubles of common-place life, might be disposed to compare their lot with that of the inmate of the mysterious and happy home drawn by the poet. It was in a large and fruitful district of the south of India that I passed a few years of my life. In this district lived, immured in his fort, one of the native rajahs, who, with questionable justice, have gradually been shorn of their regal state and authority, to become pensioners of the East India Company. The inevitable consequence of such an existence, the forced life of inactivity with the traditions of the bold exploits of his royal ancestors, brilliant Mahratta chieftains, may be imagined. The rajah sunk into a state of slothful dissipation, varied by the occasional intemperate exercise of the power left him within the limits of the fortress, his residence. This fort is not the place which the word would suggest to the reader, but was rather a small native town surrounded by fortifications. This town was peopled by the descendants of the Mahrattas, and by the artisans and dependents of the rajah and his court. Twice a year the English resident and his assistants were accustomed to pay visits of ceremony to the rajah, and had to encounter the fatiguing sights of dancing-girls, beast-fights, and _music_, if the extraordinary assemblage of sounds, which in the East assume the place of harmony, can be so called.