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Opposite we reproduce a page from a fascinating publication: The Baital Pachisi, or Twenty-five Tales of a Demon prepared by W. Burckhardt Barker, M.R.A.S. (Oriental Interpreter; and Professor of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Hindustani Languages at Eton), and edited by E.B. Eastwick, F.R.S. (Professor Oriental Languages, and Librarian in the Est India College). It was published in 1855 in Hartford by Stephen Austin, Bookseller to the East India College. The back cover carries the following statement: "It is hoped that by the aid of this book ALONE a competent knowledge of Hindustani may be acquired with ease in the course of two or three months." As it is said, those were the days.
Annual of Urdu Studies, #7 131