Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/472

 presence of a superior; so much so, that Mr. Gardner himself was never guilty of the indecorum of wearing shoes or slippers in the presence of his wife.

The Begam was sitting on a charpāī when we entered the apartment; when Mrs. B presented me as the friend of Col. Gardner, she shook hands with me, and said, "How do you do, k[)u]row?"—this was all the English she could speak. The Begam appeared ill and languid: perhaps the languor was the effect of opium. I had heard so much of Mulka's wonderful beauty, that I felt disappointed: her long black and shining hair, divided in front, hung down on both sides of her face as low as her bosom, while the rest of her hair, plaited behind, hung down her back in a long tail.

Her dress consisted of silk pājāmas (full trowsers), over which she wore a pair of Indian shawls, and ornaments of jewellery were on her hands and arms. En passant, be it said that ladies in the East never wear petticoats, but full pājāmas: the ayhas, who attend on English ladies in the capacity of ladies' maids, wear the petticoat; but it is a sign of servitude, and only worn to satisfy the ideal delicacy of English ladies, who dislike to see a female servant without a petticoat. The moment an ayha quits her mistress, and goes into her own house, she pulls off the petticoat as a useless incumbrance, and appears in the native trowsers which she always wears beneath it.

The room in which the Begam received us was the one in which she usually slept; the floor was covered with a white cloth. She was sitting on a charpāī (a native bed); and as the natives never use furniture, of course there was none in the room.

Two or three female attendants stood by her side, fanning her with large feather fans; the others drove away the mosquitoes and flies with chaunrīs made of peacocks' feathers, which are appendages of royalty.

Some opium was brought to her; she took a great bit of it herself, and put a small bit, the size of half a pea, into the mouth of each of her young children; she eats much opium