CHAPTER XXIV

Summary

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.