In 'The Narrator's Narrative' Anna Liberata de Souza's own story is related, as much as possible, in her own words of expressive but broken English. She did not, however, tell it in one continuous narrative; it is the sum of many conversations I had with her, during the eighteen months that she was with us.
The legends themselves are altered as little as possible; half their charm, however, consisted in the Narrator's eager, flexible voice and graphic gestures.
I often asked her if there were no stories of elephants having done wonderful deeds (as from their strength and sagacity one would have imagined them to possess all the qualifications requisite to heroes of romance); but, strange to say, she knew of none in which elephants played any part whatsoever.
As regards the Oriental names, they have generally been written as Anna pronounced them. It was frequently not possible to give the true orthography, and the correctly spelt name does not always give a clue to the popular pronunciation. So with the interpretations and geography. Where it is possible to identify what is described, an attempt has been made to do so; but for other explanations Anna's is the sole authority: she was quite sure that 'Seventee Bai' meant the 'Daisy Lady,' though no botanist would acknowledge the plant under that name, and she was satisfied that all gentlemen who have travelled know where 'Agra Brum' is, though she had never been there, and no such province appears in any ordinary Gazetteer or description of the city of Akbar.
These few legends, told by one old woman to her grandchildren, can only be considered as representatives of a class. 'That world,' to use her own words, 'is gone'; and those who can tell us about it in this critical and unimaginative age are fast disappearing too, before the onward march of civilisation; yet there must be in the country many a rich gold-mine unexplored. Will no one go to the diggings?
