The Scented Garden

INTRODUCTION As everybody now-a-days is perfectly well aware, a knowledge of the Persian language is practically a necessity for all sojourners in Mohammedan In- dia. In the North-West, even more than Urdu, it is the lingua franca of the upper classes : it is the tongue spoken in the courts of the Believing Princes : it is the dialect alike of love and of litera- ture : and its possession is a very talisman from Kabul to Yarkand. As a subaltern stationed at R... P..., though in a British regiment, I found it my first duty to acquire a thorough grounding in the tongue of Hafiz, for these as well as professional reasons. Thus I made the acquaintance of Munshi Mahbub Tantra, a Kashmiri from Bandipur, but one residence of nearly 30 years in Shiraz and Bushir. My know- ledge of the writings of Richard Burton came in very handy, as also the vague studies of Oriental mysticism with which I had amused my leisure hours : so that a genuine friendship soon sprang up between pupil and teacher. After some months, indeed, — and this is how I find myself transformed into that glorious being, an Editor — the munshi, with the childlike frank- ness of the Kashmiri, blurted out : The Sahib is not like other sahibs ; they begin by casting dirt at my people for their bad life, and end by spitting upon my beard, bidding me procure for them a fat and fair boy : but the Asylum of the World, who lives like a great prince and a fakir (mean- ing : “ You have illimitable resources, but are ab- stemious ”) really understands the ‘ hikmat-i-