Monday, Jan. 12, 1840.
We dined with Colonel J. yesterday. He lives, I believe, quite in the
native style, with a few black Mrs. J.'s gracing his domestic circle
when we are not here, but he borrowed St. Cloup and our cooks to dress
the dinner, and it all went off very well. That little Mrs. T. looked
very pretty, but Captain T. planted himself opposite to her, and frowned
whenever she tried to talk, but he did not quite stop her, and another
week of society would, I expect, enable her to frown again. We went to
Scindia's durbar to-day. The palace was three miles off, and we had to
set off at three on elephants, and the heat and the dust and the crowd
were something inconceivable, but it was a curious show. The durbar was
very orderly and handsome. G. and Scindia sat together on a gold throne
with a canopy, and F. and I on two silver chairs next to G., and down
each side of the room were his sirdars on one side and our officers on
the other. After we had sat about ten minutes, the negotiations began
for our going to see the ranee, and there were many preliminaries to
arrange, and at last we _condescended_ to walk through the two rooms
that led to the zenana, for fear any of the bearers should catch a
glimpse of anything, and no aide-de-camp was to go for the same reason,
so we walked off with Mrs. H. We had sent the two ayahs there in the
morning, as Mrs. H. does not speak the language very well. Some female
slaves met us at the first door, and then some cousins of the rajah's;
in the next room _two_ stepmothers, and then an old grandmother, and at
the door of her own room was the little ranee, something like a little
transformed cat in a fairy tale, covered with gold tissue, and clanking
with diamonds. Her feet and hands were covered with rings fastened with
diamond chains to her wrists and ankles. She laid hold of our hands and
led us to her throne, which was like the rajah's, without a canopy, and
her women lifted her up, and we sat on each side of her, and then all
the relations sat in two rows on chairs, and looked uncomfortable, and
the nautch girls began dancing. The ranee is only eight years old, and
is the sister of his first wife, on whom he doted, and on her death-bed
she made him promise to marry this child. She was so shy, she would
hardly let us see her face, but the old women talked for her, and the
presents filled up the time, for the rajah had ordered that she should
put all the jewellery on us with her own little hands. I had a diamond
necklace and a collar, some native pearl earrings that hung nearly down
to the waist, and a beautiful pair of diamond bracelets, and the great
article of all was an immense diamond tiara. I luckily could not keep
this on with a bonnet. They were valued altogether at 2,400_l._, the
mere stones. F.'s were of different shapes, some very pretty, but not so
costly, but altogether it was an immense prize for the Company. Then we
had a bale of shawls, and the ayahs got six shawls, and Mrs. H. a
necklace, and besides all the diamonds, they hung flowers all over us.
We must have looked like mad tragedy queens when we came out, but
everybody was transmogrified in the same way. Some years ago, it might
have made us laugh, but W. and Mr. A., with great necklaces of flowers
on, led us gravely back to our silver chairs, and there was G., sitting
bolt upright, a pattern of patience, with a string of pearls as big as
peas round his neck, a diamond ring on one hand and a large sapphire on
the other, and a cocked hat embroidered in pearls at his side. We came
home through a grand illumination, and were thoroughly tired at last.
Tuesday, Jan. 13.
Scindia returned G.'s visit to-day, and the ceremonies were much the
same, and I think our presents were almost handsomer than his. G. asked
him to come for a secret conference into the shawl tent with silver
poles that Runjeet gave us, and in that was the gold bed inlaid with
rubies, also Runjeet's, on which they both sat, with B. and A., Colonel
J. on one side and the rajah's two ministers on the other. It looked
mysterious and _conspiring_, and the rajah's followers were in a horrid
state of alarm; they said their king had been carried off, and had no
guards, and perhaps never would be let out again. G. and the rajah
transacted a little real business, and then G. got up and asked him to
accept the tent and the bed, which quite delighted him, and he went
away.
We went on to see a much more interesting little durbar. G. had all the
old soubadars and havildars of the regiments that have been with us, all
through this march, and some of the body-guard, and gave them each a gun
and a pair of shawls. One old fellow has been fifty-eight years in the
service, and would tell his story here: he had been at Java in Lord
Minto's time, and so on, and he had five medals to show, another had
four; they are all most respectable natives. Their great desire was that
G. should pour attar on their hands, with his own hand, which is a great
distinction; and altogether it was a very touching sight, and has
pleased all the troops very much.
We had a great dinner of all the officers afterwards, which luckily was
not formal; as there was a Mr. V., a cousin of Lady B.'s, who sings
beautifully, without accompaniment, and filled up the evening very
pleasantly.
Wednesday.
The camp moved three miles to-day, that G. might be nearer the
garden-house where the rajah was to give him a dinner, and we came over
such roads! I wonder the carriage stood it. The dinner was all in the
native style, but would have been eatable, G. says, only he was on so
high a chair that he never could pick up a morsel from the table. The
rajah sent F. and me some dinner--three kids roasted whole, and covered
with gold and silver leaf, a deer, and about fifty dishes of _sorts_,
much to the delight of the servants. Wright and Jones with Rosina went
to take our return presents to the little ranee, and were charmed with
their visit.
Thursday.
G. went to a long tiresome review to-day, and F. and C. went with
Captain X., Mr. H., and Dr. D. to visit Donheit Rao's tomb. The baizee
baee erected it fifteen years ago. There is a black marble figure of
him, dressed in the same sort of gold stuff he always wore, and with all
his jewels on, and as, being of black marble, he cannot go to Mahadeo's
temple to say prayers, Mahadeo is brought and put on a table before him.
Food is served up to him three times a day, and there is a nautch going
on while he is supposed to eat. They were nautching all the time we were
there, and I think the marble man liked it. The baee endowed the tomb
with five villages, and the Brahmins in attendance eat up the food the
marble man leaves. It has made rather a good sketch. G. said, while the
review was going on, the sirdar who had been with us came and reported
that the ladies had been to the tomb and had been so much pleased that
they made a drawing of it, and that they had returned safely to camp,
and the maharajah sent his compliments, and said he was glad to hear of
our safety. I never felt much afraid, did you? but then I have sketched
before, and know what it is.
Friday, Jan. 17.
I declare I think Scindia a very nice young man, likely to turn out
well. There is an enamelled little box of spices that comes every day
with the uneatable food he sends for luncheon, and I took it up one day
and commented upon its beauty. I suppose our servants told his, for
to-day Colonel E. arrived with Bajee Rao and another Vakeel, who had
brought the little spice-box in a palanquin, with a message from the
rajah that he heard I had admired it, and that he had sent it as a
_private_ present to me, that if the Company were to have it, he did not
give it at all, but that Colonel E. was to arrange so that I should have
it. G. has paid its value to the Company, which is the simplest
arrangement, though he hardly ever will give leave to have anything
bought by private contract, but in this instance where there was no
return present he did. Colonel E. is very angry that it should be paid
for because it was entirely a private present, but I see the value of
the rule. It was very good-natured of the rajah to think of it, and I
shall keep my little spice-box with a tender recollection of him, to say
nothing of its being a lovely little article, _per se_.
Saturday, Jan. 18.
I should like to have kept this open till your letter arrived, but G.
seems to think the great packet may not come till to-morrow. Still, I
think I won't send it. G. may be wrong, everybody is occasionally. In
the meantime, I beg to say we have left Gwalior, and I shall have
nothing to see, or say, till we get back to Calcutta. So you need hardly
read the next journal--it will be so very heavy.
W. and I got up by a wrong gun this morning, one of Scindia's. There is
no carriage road, so we all travel separately in tonjauns, or on
elephants, or horses or anyhow; and _after_ I had set off in a great
fuss at being so late, G.'s first gun fired. I found W. scrambling
along on a pony, under the same delusion; and we got in here an hour
before the others, riding the last six miles as hard as we could. I was
glad to be in soon, the weather is so very hot. It has been cold for
about three weeks this year.--God bless you! I have been trying to read
over my journal and have stuck in it. What very heavy reading it is!
Jan. 20.
I have kept this open for two days, in hopes that the letters would come
in, but we have just got all the Galignanis with an announcement from
Bombay, that the Falmouth packet is not come at all; and all your
letters are there--and everybody's. It is so disheartening!--We cannot
have them for five weeks.