Dieg, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 1839.
The Bhurtpore Rajah came out to meet G. to-day with a pretty retinue,
odd-looking carriages and horses covered with gold, but he is a fat,
hideous young man himself. We went in the afternoon to see the palace at
Dieg, which the rajahs used to live in before the siege of Bhurtpore,
but they make no use of it now, which is a pity. The gardens are
intersected in all directions by fountains, and the four great buildings
at each side of the garden, which make up their palaces, are great
masses of open colonnades with baths, or small rooms screened off by
carved white marble slabs, and the fountains play all round the halls,
so that even in the hot winds, Mr. H. says, it is cool in the centre of
these halls. It was a very pretty sight to-day, from the crowds of
people mixed up with the spring of the waters; and the Mahrattas wear
such beautiful scarlet turbans covered with gold or silver cords, that
they showed it off well.
There is a Colonel E. come into camp to-day: he is the Resident at
Gwalior, and is come to fetch us. He is about the largest man I ever
saw, and always brings his own chair with him, because he cannot fit
into any other. He has lived so entirely with natives that I fancy he
very seldom sits on a chair at all, and I suppose he is, as ---- says,
very shy of white females, for it was impossible to get an answer from
him. It is a curious fact that the very * * *
Khoomberee, Wednesday, Dec. 11.
I would give anything to know what curious fact I was going to tell you.
You never _will_ know it now, that is certain. To finish off Colonel E.,
I must mention that the officer who commands his escort is called Snook,
and that his godfathers, to make it worse, called him Violet. He is a
little man, about five feet high, and is supposed to have called out
three people for calling him Snooks instead of _Snook_. I am giving up
my plan of leaving G. at Agra. He has cut off a month of his tour, and
means to go straight to Calcutta from Gwalior, which is seven marches
longer than my road, and with six days there, he would only be thirteen
days later than me; the old khansamah has set his face steadily against
it. He says, I have no business to leave the Lord Sahib, and that if I
take away one steamboat full of baggage and servants, he cannot make
show enough at Gwalior. Moreover, I am so well this year, I have no
excuse for idleness, when it would be so generally inconvenient; and I
do not like to leave G. and F. for two months, now that it only saves
thirteen days. We shall all be at Calcutta by the first of March now.
Bhurtpore, Thursday, Dec. 12.
We had some cheeta hunting on the way here. Antelopes abound, there are
hundreds of them to be seen at a time; the cheetas are put in carts like
the common hackeries the natives use, and which the antelopes are
accustomed to see, so they do not get much out of the way, and when the
cart is within 400 yards, the cheeta's hood is taken off, and he makes
two or three bounds and generally knocks down the antelope. If he fails
after a few bounds, he gets disgusted and comes back to the cart. There
were two or three good chases this morning but no antelope killed, which
was rather a blessing. We went so much out of the road, that the
regiments and all their baggage got before us, and we could not go on in
the carriage, and had to ride seven miles which I thought long. The
Bhurtpore Rajah came to the durbar in the afternoon. He is the ugliest
and fattest young man I ever saw. A small face that takes up the usual
space of the chin, and all the rest is head. He is very black, marked
with the small-pox, and can hardly waddle for fat, and is only
twenty-one. He was just six years old when Lord Combermere put him on
his throne.
Bhurtpore, Friday, Dec. 13.
The rajah is supposed to have the best shooting in India, and was to
give G. the most delightful sport, so there was such a fuss to be off at
six in the morning, and such a tribe of elephants, and such jealousy as
to who was to go, and how many, and perhaps a slight wonder as to how
all the game was to be disposed of; and they were out five hours, and
came back in a frenzy; G. having shot one quail and a wild cat, and
some one else a partridge, and another had seen a hare, and the rajah
had said at the end that he hoped the Lord Sahib was 'bhote razee,'
which means more than quite delighted with his day's sport. I think he
must be facetious though he does not look so. Mr. R. stayed behind to
let F. and me see some hawking, and we took Mrs. C. and Mrs. R. and
several of the officers and went into a boat with a large raised
platform, and the men with hawks went wading into the water and put up
wild ducks which the hawks invariably caught. We could not complain of
want of sport, but it is rather a butchering business.
Futtehpore-Sickrey, Saturday, Dec. 14.
We went to a beautiful fête last night, I never saw such illuminations
anywhere. The whole town for two miles was lit up with straight rows of
lamps, and at the palace there was a square of lights with four great
arches three stories high, with doors and windows all built of lamps.
The whole thing was very well ordered.
The rajah took G. into an immense hall fitted up in the oddest way with
French chandeliers of green and purple and yellow glass, as thick as
they could be hung. Looking-glasses, and old-fashioned mirrors, and
English prints on the wall. At the end there was the 'chamber of daïs,'
very much painted and gilded, and raised three steps, and there we were
all 'set of a row,' G. on one side of the rajah and I on the other, and
all our party in chairs, and his prime minister in the centre. All round
the hall were the officers of the escort and their wives, and the
Bhurtpore chiefs, and in the middle a very select assembly of
nautch-girls. I never saw so orderly a native party. The rajah was very
nervous at first, and his wide black face full of twitches, but Mr. H.
says he was very much pleased with the success of his party, as it is
the first time he has ever seemed to act for himself. It is always a
dull job, except that I like to look at the nautching, which bores most
people. The prime minister's little boy was introduced, a deformed
little animal, and G. gave him a diamond ring, which was unexpected and
well taken.
Then after G.'s trays of presents were taken away, there came in six for
me and six for F. of rather nice little articles, dressing gowns of
cloth of gold lined with cashemere, ivory chowries and fans, silver
tissue for turbans--very pretty pickings if they had been private
presents, but I saw C. twisting his moustaches in agonies, because they
were not intrinsically worth the diamond rings we gave in exchange. I
fancied the Rajah smelt very strongly of green fat, and as it was past
eight, and we are used to early dinners in camp, I thought in my hunger,
what a pity it was that we had not brought St. Cloup, who in
half-an-hour would have warmed the rajah up into excellent turtle soup.
We had a march of seventeen miles this morning, the longest we have ever
had, so of course the wheel of the carriage locked, before we had gone a
hundred yards. We have never had an accident before, this year. Webb had
gone on with the key, so we took refuge on two elephants and jogged on
four miles, and then overtook our tonjauns into which F. and I subsided.
Then Mr. H. came up driving Captain Z. in his buggy and set him down in
the road and took me. Ten minutes after, Dr. D. caught up F. and drove
her on. Mr. H. and I drove wildly on, looking for a conveyance for G.
and thought ourselves uncommonly clever in overtaking and bringing
together four of our carriage horses, and the palanquin carriage which
is drawn by bullocks when it is not wanted, and then we found that the
pole was sent on in a cart, and there was nothing but the bullock yoke,
so we drove on discomfited. Then we came to an empty buggy and put a
trooper to guard it and sent another back to tell G. it was there, but
it turned out that it belonged to ---- of the body guard, who has been in
constant scrapes and is under arrest, so G. could not well take that.
However, H. found his own horse for him, and altogether we got into camp
in very good time, but half the people came in late with all sorts of
difficulties. Camp conveyances are very good for ten or twelve miles,
but always fail on a long march; the bearers get tired and out of sorts.
We pass Mrs. ----, your likeness, every morning, with her bearers guarded
by two sepoys, because they will put down the tonjaun and run away.
Merahoon, Monday.
It was lucky we had our halt at Futtehpore-Sickrey. Except Delhi, it is
the most interesting place we have seen, and there is more to sketch,
and in these hurried journeys I do not think it any sin to sketch on
Sunday. There is a tomb of marble here, carved like lace--it would make
such a splendid dairy for Windsor Castle, it looks so cool and so
royal--and there is a beautiful gateway, the arch of which is ninety
feet high; and then there are some remains of the Emperor Akbar, which
give a good idea of the magnificent fellow he was. The throne in which
he sat to hear petitions stands in the centre of a hall, with a cross of
stone balconies abutting from it, to four open arches. His ministers
were placed at each end of that cross, their seats looking out on the
courts below, so any grievance that was stated _to_ them, or _against_
them, they were obliged to announce at the full extent of their voices,
else the emperor could not hear them, and the petitioner below was made
certain that his grievance was rightly stated. This throne, &c., is most
beautifully carved, as you will see whenever I send my sketch books
home. There is also a lovely carved room, all over European devices,
supposed to have been built by the directions of a favourite wife, whom
he imported from Constantinople. In the centre of the court, a
_pucheesee_ board (pucheesee is a sort of chess) is laid out in squares
of marble, and there is a raised seat on which Akbar sat and played the
games; the _pieces_ were all female slaves splendidly dressed, and
whoever won carried off the sixteen ladies.
Agra, Wednesday, Dec. 18.
We came here yesterday and went off the same afternoon to see the Taj,
which is quite as beautiful, even more so, than we had expected after
all we have heard, and as we have never heard of anything else, that
just shows how entirely perfect it must be. You must have heard and read
enough about it, so I spare you any more, but it really repays a great
deal of the trouble of the journey. We passed the day in the tents, as
they were more convenient for G.'s levée, and in the afternoon came on
to this delightful house, which was Sir Charles Metcalfe's and is now
Mr. H.'s, who has good-naturedly entrenched himself in one wing and
settled us in the rest. It is beautifully furnished, and so clean and
quiet. I really love it--it is so pleasant not to feel dusty.
Friday, Dec. 20.
We went yesterday to see Secundra, where Akbar is buried, and his tomb
of beautiful white marble is up four stories of grotesque buildings,
well worth seeing; so much so that, as G. had a durbar to-night and
could not go out, F. and I went back alone, and had rather a rest, in
sketching there, for two hours, but it is impossible to make anything of
these elaborate Mogul buildings, they are all lines and domes, and
uncommonly trying to the patience. We are attempting to buy Agra marbles
and curiosities, but somehow cannot find many, and those we ordered
before we came down are not half done, but they will be very pretty. I
have got two little tombs, facsimiles of Shah Jehan's and his wife's,
with all the same little patterns inlaid. Valuable--but I wish they were
not quite so dear. We were at home on Thursday night--there seem to be a
great many people at Agra. Mrs. H., who was a Miss A., is very pretty
and nice. We stay here till the 1st, and this fortnight of rest from
tents is a great comfort. My small health is uncommonly good just now.