The Music of Hindostan c7.170

c7.170

There is one special class of song, lullabies,¹ of great interest and beauty. They seem not to be much known in the Punjab, where Mahommedan mothers croon only The Name, Illāh-il-illāh, over their babies. But in any part of the peninsula they may lurk unsuspected, as the difficulty of persuading a woman, except of the lowest class, to sing before a man, and especially before a European, is almost insuperable. Those I got were chiefly in the south, and from ‘enlightened’ women.