Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/142

138 duction to the Rájá. Being in full uniform, we held a consultation with Lord Elphinstone, and unanimously agreed that we would not make fools of ourselves, merely to please a man who owed everything to the British. Imagine our surprise on seeing Nicholson enter, also in full uniform, with a pair of very baggy stockings on his feet! All I can say is, that while he was with us he never heard the last of it.

Our interview with the Rájá, a fine handsome old man with a long beard, was extremely interesting. He gave us a history of all his campaigns, and produced a sort of panorama painted by a native artist, portraying the events of his life. In one there was a group of men pouring what was evidently molten lead down a prisoner's throat. We asked what they were doing, upon which he laughed heartily, and pointing to the caldron said, 'They are making tea!' When we alluded to Kot Kángra holding out, he simply observed that Lál Singh was at the bottom of it all, and ought to be hanged; but he was sorry, at the same time, to speak thus of an old friend. He mentioned, too, the narrow escape he had had when the English garrison first occupied Lahore. According to his account, on returning one day from Lawrence's tent, he went to a shrine in the city to perform his devotions, and on rising to mount his horse the Fakír observed, 'It is not time yet.' He then waited about a quarter of an hour and again proposed to go. The Fakír again stopped him; but when half an hour had elapsed, he was allowed to go. He afterwards found