I refrain at present giving you the evidence so far as it has been recorded, since the case will be resumed on Monday next. As soon as the evidence is concluded and judgement delivered, I will furnish you with the whole missule ["file"] for publication. In conclusion I would suggest that the opinion of Major Lees or any other European Orientalist be taken as to the proper interpretation of the defamatory passage printed and published in the work entitled "Qateh-ul Qateh.[sic]." Yours truly, IXION March, 1868 [We can get some idea of the level of mud-slinging that went on at the time from the following quotation from one of Ghalib's letters as translated by Muhammad Sadiq. "All the abusive epithets that exist in the language have been showered by him on me. He should have realized that even if I am not a poet and scholar, I hold, at least, a distinguished position among the gentry and aristocracy. I am an honourable man, nobly descended, and on friendly terms with the Indian gentry, chiefs, and maharajas. I have been recognized as Rats-Zada by the Government, awarded the title of Najm-ud-Daula by the Emperor, and addressed as Khan Sahib and Very Dear Friend by the Government. Did~~he ever think: Why should I call him insane, dog, ass, when he is addressed as Khan Sahib by the Government? In reality this is putting a slight on the Government, nobility, and gentry of India. (Muhammad Sadiq. A HISTORY OF URDU LITERATURE (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 179.) The correspondent's pseudonym is also interesting. Ixion, according to Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, was "a king of the Lapithae, bound in Tartarus to an endlessly revolving wheel." Given the circumstances, the choice seems most curious unless, one speculates, the correspondent was an admirer of Ghalib's couplet: "No device can stop me from wandering in the wilderness//It is a whirling circlet, and not a chain, around my legs."] 100