Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/147

 train when she walked; and her women stood behind her couch to arrange her head-dress, when in moving her pearls got entangled in the immense dopatta of scarlet and gold she had thrown around her. How I wished for you when we were seated! you would have been delighted with the whole scene. This beautiful creature is the envy of all the other wives, and the favourite, at present, of the king and his mother, both of whom have given her titles—the king's is after the favourite wife of one of the celebrated kings of Delhi, 'Tajmah[)u]l,' and Nourmah[)u]l herself could not have been more lovely.

"The other newly-made queen is nearly European, but not a whit fairer than Tajmah[)u]l. She is, in my opinion, plain, but is considered by the native ladies very handsome; and she was the king's favourite until he saw Tajmah[)u]l.

"She was more splendidly dressed than even Tajmah[)u]l; her head-dress was a coronet of diamonds, with a fine crescent and plume of the same. She is the daughter of an European merchant, and is accomplished for an inhabitant of a zenāna, as she writes and speaks Persian fluently, as well as Hindostani, and it is said she is teaching the king English; though, when we spoke to her in English, she said she had forgotten it, and could not reply. She was, I fancy, afraid of the old begam, as she evidently understood us; and when asked if she liked being in the zenāna, she shook her head and looked quite melancholy. Jealousy of the new favourite, however, appeared the cause of her discontent, as, though they sat on the same couch, they never addressed each other. And now you must be as tired of the begams, as I am of writing about them.

"The mother of the king's children, Mulka Zumanee, did not visit us at the old queen's, but we went to see her at her own palace: she is, after all, the person of the most political consequence, being the mother of the heir-apparent; and she has great power over her royal husband, whose ears she boxes occasionally.

"The Delhi princess, to whom the king was betrothed and married by his father, we did not see; she is in disgrace, and confined to her own palace. The old begam talked away to us,