Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/200

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CHAPTER XI
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It would be tedious to relate at length the details of each successive halt on the road to Delhi, where the 'phantom court,' as Sir Alfred Lyall calls it, was still ruling, in shadowy state. On arrival at the Mughal capital, the too familiar ceremonial begins over and over again, the unending circus is certainly beginning to pall upon one. Lord Amherst embraced the heir-apparent and his brother who came on their elephants to meet him. The long procession with deliberate solemnity proceeds up streets 'wider than any in London, not excepting Portland Place,' and so they advanced amid deafening noise, loud native music, and the bellowing of elephants, to the house of Sir Charles Metcalfe. 'The vast concourse of elephants heightened the grandeur of the scene.' The heir-apparent, 'a melancholy looking man,' says Lady Amherst, hunts, wears boots and leather breeches. How well one knows that younger brother who imitates the English! The usual receptions follow and the Begam Samru now again appears upon the