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178 the Governor-General of India has to step aside to allow the sacred brute to pass. Besides the bulls there are the Fakirs, who seem even more objectionable, with their strange distorted minds and bodies. They paint themselves white (is it in suggestion of the text?): 'holy villains' Lady Amherst calls them. Lord and Lady Amherst dined with Mr. Brooke (the veteran of whom mention has been made elsewhere). Fifty people sat down to dinner, and at the Drawing Room afterwards the ladies were 'as well dressed as in Calcutta.' The Governor-General and his wife go about in tonjons, and visit the famous minarets of Aurangzeb, 'an effort felt for many days by Lord Amherst in the sinews of his legs.' Lady Amherst had some talk with Mr. Brooke about the Hindus. 'You may live very well with them,' he said, 'if you are always on your guard.' The old story of the unfortunate Mr. Cherry, which was told again by Mr. Brooke, confirms the impression.

On the 17th they proceed to Rámnagar (the palace of the Rájá of Benares), where the entertainments of jewels, fireworks, cloth of gold, &c., are continued to the sound of guitars and cocoa-nut instruments, with salutes from the battery, and shouts from friendly crowds who escort them to their pinnace. There is a certain monotony in these royal progresses. Lady Amherst writes, 'The Rájá is literally covered with very fine diamonds, and strings of pearls round his neck, a large diamond necklace hung down to his girdle. On his forehead hung a row of the finest