"'Oh, put me down! You hurt me,--I have not fallen,--oh, let me go!'
"'Will you promise then not to take flight to your leafy dwelling, in
that your fairy kingdom-tree?'
"'What do you mean? Oh, let me go,--you'll crush me!'
"I gently placed her on the ground, and told her my fears. The instant
I unclutched her, she ran to her old attendant, scared like a young
leveret; and this was my first embrace of my Arab maid.
"That it may not be considered I exaggerate, when speaking of the Arabs
in India generally, I must refer the reader to what a recent, learned,
and unprejudiced traveller says of them: 'The Arabs are numerous in
India; their comparative fairness, their fine, bony, and muscular
figures, their noble countenances, and picturesque dress, intelligent,
bold, and active,' &c.
"Zela's father was all this, and her mother a celebrated beauty brought
from the Georgian Caucasus, and twice made captive by the chance of war.
After giving birth to Zela, she looked, and saw her own image in her
child, blessed it, and yielded up her mortality. Is it to be marvelled
at, that the offspring of such parents was as I have described, or
rather what I have attempted to describe? For I am little skilled in
words, or words are insufficient to represent what the eye sees, and
the heart feels.
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