Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/127

 We have spent the last three weeks most delightfully at Papamhow. Every sort of scientific amusement was going forward. Painting in oil and water colours, sketching from nature, turning, making curious articles in silver and brass, constructing Æolian harps, amusing ourselves with archery, trying the rockets on the sands of an evening, chemical experiments, botany, gardening; in fact, the day was never half long enough for our employment in the workshop and the grounds.

Papamhow is five miles from our own house, standing on higher ground and in a better situation, on the Ganges; when we can make holiday, we go up and stay at our country house, as our neighbours call it.

The old moonshee is cutting out my name in the Persian character, on the bottom of a Burmese idol, to answer as a seal. What an excellent picture the old man, with his long grey beard, would make! I have caught two beautiful little squirrels, with bushy tails and three white stripes on their backs; they run about the table, come to my shoulder, and feed from my hand.

May.—Our friend at Papamhow is gunpowder agent to the Government, and manager of the rocket manufactory; his services are likely to be fully exerted, as it is reported that Runjeet Singh is not expected to live four months, being in the last stage of a liver complaint, and that his son, it is thought, will hoist the standard of rebellion. What gives foundation for this, is, that Lord Combermere is about to make the tour of the Upper Provinces, and that a concentration of forces is to take place on the frontier, under the pretext of a grand military inspection and review. There is no doubt as to who will go to the wall.

We have just received news of the death of Lord Hastings, and learn from the same papers, that Lord Amherst has been created an earl, and Lord Combermere a Viscount.

We have been occupied in planting a small avenue of neem-trees in front of the house; unlike the air around the tamarind, that near a neem-tree is reckoned wholesome:—according to the Guzrattee Proverb, we had made no advance on our heavenward