The Mussulman girl of the better class is in early childhood taught to recite prayers and to read the Qor’an in Arabic, though without understanding of the words she reads. As she grows older she is usually taught more, and attains a fair knowledge of Urdu, while, if she shows signs of greater capacity, she will often learn Persian as well. To read simple books in Urdu and Persian is at least a common accomplishment, and there are not a few who can themselves read or, at least, understand the elegant odes of Hafiz. In household management and the care of her children the Mussulman lady is able to find incessant occupation, while there is no one who more appreciates the pleasures of a garden with runnels of flowing water under a tropic sky. She rises very early, and shortly after dawn she is to be found among the roses in the walled garden. Chess and backgammon are frequent amusements. In talismans, omens, charms and the evil eye she has an unshakable belief, which survives every trial. And in her later years she looks forward to the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca, with all its difficulties and hardships, as the last and best employment of a well-spent life. Something there is truly noble in that figure of an old lady, veiled in white, facing, after a long life behind the curtain, the crowded port, the steamer, and the desert Bedouins. But sweetest picture of all in the womanhood of the Mussulman nobility is the growing girl, not yet a woman, in coloured silk trousers, long robe, or shirt of fine Dacca muslin, and velvet cap gold-embroidered, as she sits cross-legged beneath a shady tree and recites aloud from the silk-covered Qor’an that is open before her on its carved sandalwood rest. The Middle Classes “Things never changed since the time of the Gods, The flowing of water, the way of love.” _Japanese Song._ LAFCADIO HEARN. [Illustration: FROM BURMAH] Chapter V THE MIDDLE CLASSES In a vast empire with a population of over three hundred millions, in area a continent, with some thirty-five main languages and of dialects none can say how many, with different religions and with cultures divided from each other by centuries of progress, anything like an adequate description of the middle-class woman would be a task beyond human power, and its perusal beyond the patience of the most enduring reader. Less difficult by far would it be to head a chapter “The middle classes of Europe,” and, within its limits, after running from Greece and Roumania to Spain and England, to scale the heights upon which, like an inspiration, the womanhood of France sits enthroned. But there are at least some essentials in which the womanhood of the Indian middle classes becomes congruous, differing therein from the women of other countries, Europe for instance, or America or China. Perhaps it may be tried by the selection of a few types, with the aid of contrast and analysis, in some way to express their essential atmosphere and habit.