Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/201

 scene and is asked to dinner, 'a short old woman, with a keen eye, white muslin dress and crimson satin pyjamas.' Her manner is described by Lady Amherst as pleasing and courteous, and she is building a cathedral.

Lady Amherst hears and duly sets down many a story of this famous lady. Most of them had been told to Bishop Heber, and to the blameless pages of his journal the reader must be referred. She was one of the most remarkable personages of the time. Her husband, Walter Bernhardt, a native of Strasburg or of Trèves, had taken service as a sailor with the French, and as a soldier with the British. Finally he drifted to India, where he attached himself to the Nawáb of Bengal, and was responsible for the murder of the British residents at Patná in the year 1763. He obtained large grants of land, and married. He was nicknamed Sombre, which the natives corrupted into Samru, and when he died in 1778, his widow became famous as the Begam Samru. Originally a Musalmán she embraced what may by courtesy be called her husband's faith. After his death she became a Roman Catholic, and ruled in great state at Sardhána—a place in the Meerut District, where many a visible token of her glory still remains. She maintained an army and commanded it in the field. An old woman at the time of Lord Amherst's visit, she lived on till 1836.

Sir Charles Metcalfe's diplomatic skill had been sorely taxed to arrange the ceremonial for the inter-