At royal courts women were employed to carry the litters of the
king and the royal ladies into the inner precincts of the palace,
the male bearers relinquishing their charge outside. "Another
class of attendants at the palace peculiar to Lucknow were the
female bearers. Their occupation was to carry the palanquins and
various covered conveyances of the king and his ladies into the
inner courts of the harem. These female bearers were also under
military discipline. They had their officers, commissioned and
non-commissioned. The head of them, a great masculine woman of pleasing
countenance, was an especial favourite of the king. The badinage which
was exchanged between them was of the freest possible character--not
fit for ears polite, of course; but the extraordinary point in it was
that no one hearing it or witnessing such scenes could have supposed
it possible that a king and a slave stood before him as the two chief
disputants." [243] Similarly female sepoys were employed to guard the
harem, dressed in ordinary uniform and regularly drilled and taught
to shoot. [244] A battalion of female troops for guarding the zenana
is still maintained in Hyderabad. [245]