Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/148

 but appeared surprised I should admire Tajmah[)u]l more than the English begam, as she is called,—my country-woman as they styled her!

"Poor thing, I felt ashamed of the circumstance, when I saw her chewing pān with all the gusto of a regular Hindostanee."

The above letter contains so charming an account of Lucnow, that I cannot refrain from adding an extract from another of the same lady.

"At the residency, on such a day as this, the thermometer is seldom short of 100°!

"Did you ever hear of Colonel Gardner? he is married to a native princess. The other day he paid Lucnow a visit. His son's wife is sister to the legal queen of our present worthy sovereign of Oude. Colonel Gardner came on a visit to the begam's father, Mirza Sulimān Sheko, a prince of the house of Delhi, blessed with fifty-two children, twelve sons and forty daughters! Did you ever hear of such enormity? the poor papa is without a rupee, his pension from government of 5000 rupees a month is mortgaged to his numerous creditors. He has quarrelled with his illustrious son-in-law, the king of Oude; and Colonel Gardner has come over with the laudable purpose of removing his family from Oude to Delhi, where they will have a better chance of being provided for.

"Indeed, the other day, seventeen of the daughters were betrothed to seventeen princes of Delhi: this is disposing of one's daughters by wholesale! is it not? Colonel Gardner, who is a very gentlemanlike person, I hear, of the old school, was educated in France some fifty years ago. He gave a description of his sojourn amongst this small family in the city, in these words,—'I slept every night with the thermometer at 100°, and surrounded by 500 females!'

"What a situation! I do not know which would be the most overpowering, the extreme heat, or the incessant clack of the forty princesses and their attendants. It reminds me of the old fairy tale of the 'Ogre's forty daughters with golden crowns on their heads.'"

On dit, the English begam was the daughter of a half caste