Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/170

 hot that it has blown up, for the thunder is rattling about in the wildest manner; but I am afraid it will not rain enough to cool us, and I am rather cured of my wish for rain. We had a pelting shower yesterday, and were charmed for an hour, and then the steam began to rise from the hot ground, and it was more difficult to breathe than before.

The only incident of last week that would have amused you was the reception of a vakeel, or ambassador, from one of the great native princes. It was a burning hot day, and George and his whole household had to put themselves into full-dress immediately after breakfast, which is no joke with the thermometer at 94°. We filled the ball-room with guards, the band, &c., and then there arrived—first, fifty of the vakeel’s servants with baskets on their heads containing fruits, preserves, lovely barley-sugar, and sugar plums, &c.; then, a silver howdah for an elephant (something like an overgrown coffin lined with common velvet); then five silver trays containing shawls that made one’s mouth water, and gold stuffs that would have made unparalleled trains at a drawing-room, and then a tray full of such