As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset, they saw a young Hindoo girl upon the bank,[97] whose employment seemed to them so strange, that they stopped their palankeens to observe her. She had lighted a small lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it in an earthen dish, adorned with a wreath of flowers, had committed it with a trembling hand to the stream; and was now anxiously watching its progress down the current, heedless of the gay cavalcade which had drawn up beside her. LALLA ROOKH was all curiosity;—when one of her attendants, who had lived upon the banks of the Ganges (where this ceremony is so frequent, that often, in the dusk of the evening, the river is seen glittering all over with lights, like the Oton-tala, or Sea of Stars),[98] informed the Princess that it was the usual way, in which the friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages offered up vows for their safe return. If the lamp sunk immediately, the omen was disastrous; but if it went shining down the stream, and continued to burn until entirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was considered as certain. LALLA ROOKH, as they moved on, more than once looked back, to observe how the young Hindoo’s lamp proceeded; and, while she saw with pleasure that it was still unextinguished, she could not help fearing that all the hopes of this life were no better than that feeble light upon the river. The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. She now, for the first time, felt that shade of melancholy, which comes over the youthful maiden’s heart, as sweet and transient as her own breath upon a mirror; nor was it till she heard the lute of FERAMORZ, touched lightly at the door of her pavilion, that she waked from the reverie in which she had been wandering. Instantly her eyes were lighted up with pleasure; and after a few unheard remarks from FADLADEEN, upon the indecorum of a poet seating himself in presence of a Princess, every thing was arranged as on the preceding evening and all listened with eagerness, while the story was thus continued:— ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way, Where all was waste and silent yesterday? This City of War, which, in a few short hours, Hath sprung up here,[99] as if the magic powers Of Him who, in the twinkling of a star, Built the high pillar’d halls of CHILMINAR,[100] Had conjur’d up, far as the eye can see, This world of tents, and domes, and sun-bright armory:— Princely pavilions, screen’d by many a fold Of crimson cloth, and topp’d with balls of gold:— Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun, Their chains and poitrels, glittering in the sun; And camels, tufted o’er with Yemen’s shells,[101] Shaking in every breeze their light-ton’d bells!