Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/145

 CHAPTER X.

LIFE IN THE ZENĀNA.

"SHE WHO IS BELOVED, IS THE WIFE ."

Zenāna of the King of Oude—Regiment of Females—The Favourite Wife—The English Begam—The Princess of Delhi, the Begam par excellence—Colonel Gardner—Mirza Sulimān Sheko and his fifty-two Children—The forty Princesses—Mootee, the Pearl of the Desert—Hunting Season at Papamhow—Jackals and Foxes—A Suttee at Prāg—Report of a Suttee—An ill-starred Horse.

Oct. 1828.—A letter just received from a lady, a friend of mine, at Lucnow, is so amusing and so novel, I must make an extract:—

"The other day, (Oct. 18th,) was the anniversary of the King of Oude's coronation; and I went to see the ceremony, one I had never witnessed before, and with which I was much gratified. But the greatest treat was a visit to the begam's afterwards, when the whole of the wives, aunts, cousins, &c., were assembled in state to receive us.

"The old begam (the king's mother), was the great lady, of course, and in her palace were we received; the others being considered her guests, as well as ourselves. It was a most amusing sight, as I had never witnessed the interior of a zenāna before, and so many women assembled at once I had never beheld. I suppose from first to last we saw some thousands. Women-bearers carried our tanjans; a regiment of female gold