Owing to our constant intercourse with India, there are few among us
who are unacquainted with the word ayah. Some who live in London or
its neighbourhood may perhaps have occasionally met with one of
these sable guardian spirits, conducting one or more pale,
precocious-looking little children to their British friends; or they
may even have fallen in with a group of the tribe in Kensington
Gardens, or other public promenades, escorting their little _bâbâs_,
and herding together, like birds of a feather, attracted by the bonds
and recollections of colour, climate, caste, and language.
Ayah, in the mouth of a lisping baby, is one of the prettiest words of
the East, and is learned as soon as papa and mamma, being equally easy
of articulation. The origin of the word is probably either Portuguese
or Spanish (_aya_), although it has now become common to all classes,
Christians, Mohammedans, and Hindoos alike. The Hindostanee word for
nurse is _m[=a]m[)a]-jee_, or _daee_; the Bengalee, _doodoo_, or
_dye_.
[Transcriber's Note: Two diacritical marks are found above
the letter "a" in the word "mama-jee" in the previous
sentence. They are a macron diacritic, a dash-shaped symbol
and a breve diacritic, a u-shaped symbol. These letters are
indicated here by the coding [=a] for a macron and [)a] for
a breve above the letter "a".]
The ayah is frequently a fixture of long standing in a family,
descending from mother to daughter; and when this is the case, she is
no doubt a valuable possession, and is consulted in all the momentous
matters connected with the nursery. However, at the birth of the first
baby, she is of course spick-and-span new; and in comes the dusky
stranger, all pride and expectation, all hope and joy. It is fortunate
that there is no difference in young babies--that the one is as ugly a
little thing as the other--and so she is not disappointed: on the
contrary, she sees with one glance of her dark glittering eyes, which
have their source of sensation in her woman's heart, a thousand charms
that distinguish _her_ bâbâ from all the other babies in the universe.
With something akin to a mother's feelings, she takes the infant in
her arms, which seems incontinent to become a part of herself, lying
all day on her knees, and sleeping all night in her bosom; and from
that moment the nurse, the child, and the paun-box are always
together.
As the ayah is exclusively attached to the nursery, and has nothing to
do with household affairs or the laying out of money, she is generally
a favourite with the other servants, who seem to look upon her as
holding an intermediate station between them and the mistress. Should
any of them require leave of absence, for the purpose of attending a
funeral or a wedding, he applies first to the ayah; or if a little tea
is wanted for a sick wife or mother, through her also he obtains the
simple, though to him expensive, restorative. If a pedler comes to the
door with his box and bundles, he looks up, and spying the ayah in the
veranda or at the window, he calls out: 'Is anything wanted for
Mem-Sahib or the bâbâs? Tell the lady I have beautiful things to
shew.' Away trips the ayah to her mistress, and good-naturedly, or
perhaps--no, it _shall_ be good-naturedly--lays the discovery before
her that some trifle is wanted. The man is called in, and succeeds in
disposing of some of his wares, ribbons, laces, or silks; and the
ayah, besides having obliged the lady and the pedler, enjoys a small
modicum of satisfaction herself--who would grudge it?--in pocketing
the _dustôôree_--a discount of two pice, or half an anna on each
rupee.
There are ayahs of various castes. The Portuguese ayahs (Roman
Catholic Christians, born in the country) are no doubt the most
intelligent and useful; but they are more expensive than the Mussulman
and Lall Beggies, and are therefore not so frequently employed:
indeed, it is only in the neighbourhood of Calcutta that they are
procurable at all. As the Hindostanee women neither knit nor sew, they
seem to devote their energies exclusively to their infant charge. The
bâbâ is their work and their play, the exercise of their thoughts, the
substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only
expansion their minds know is from the unfolding of the pages of his
character. They are proud of that bâbâ, and proud of themselves for
being his. What a sight it is, the ayah coming in at the dessert, in
her rustling silks and transparent muslins--so stately in her
humility, so smilingly self-satisfied--surrounded by the children, and
holding in her dark, smooth, jewelled arms the son and heir of the
family, whom she presents to papa to get a bit of cake or sweetmeat!
This is a grand moment for the ayah. Are not the children _hers_? Have
they not lain upon her bosom all their little lives? And have not the
charms which she detected with the first glance of her glittering eye,
been developed under her care into the marvels now before the company?
But the more tranquil and permanent happiness of the ayah is enjoyed
while she is watching alone the opening of her buds of beauty, and
steeping their slumbering senses in the sweet wild music of her
country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my
own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep--although many a long year
has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now
between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly
ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own
strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, from the musical, melting Hindostanee:--
Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!
Thy faithful slave is watching near.
The cradle wherein my babe I fondle,
Is made of the rare and bright-red sandal;[3]
And the string with which I am rocking my lord,
Is a gay and glittering silken cord.
Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!
Thy faithful slave is watching near.
Thy father, my dear, is the jemadar
Of a province which stretches wide and far;
And his brother, my child, is a moonsif great,
Who ruleth o'er many a ryot's fate.
Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!
Thy faithful slave is watching near.
Thy mother of hearts is the powerful queen,
The loveliest lady that ever was seen;
And there ne'er was slave more faithful, I trow,
Than she who is rocking thy cradle now.
I have said that our ayah sometimes comes home with her charges--comes
to our home from her own. It is a bad exchange. She awakes slowly from
her dream, as she sees the rosy cheeks, full pouting lips, and round
wondering eyes, that are turned upon the dark stranger and her pale,
thin, little ones. The comparison is painful; these cherub children
have no sympathy with the lonely Hindoo; and the servants of the
house, although awed at first by her foreign aspect, and calm, stately
air, have no permanent respect for one who ranks neither with their
superiors nor with themselves. The climate, too, is as chilling as the
manners around her; her heretofore bâbâs are lords to nobody but
herself; and so, with one thing and another, she grows home-sick, her
heart yearns for her own sunny land, and she is glad--sorrowfully
glad--when at last the announcement is made, that an ayah wants to go
back to India with a family.
And in India once more, what then? Why then, the great ocean is
between her and her fledged nurslings, and she looks round for some
new objects of love and devotion. These she probably finds in another
home, another mistress, another bâbâ; her heart begins its course
anew; and the ayah lives a second life in the young lives of her
children. No joyless existence is hers, no cares without ample
compensations; but yet when I see in my own country one of these
solitary, strangely-attired, dark-skinned women, I feel attracted
towards her by an almost tearful sympathy, and have ever a kind look
and a warm, gentle word for the poor ayah.