Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/166

 guns were fired, every honour paid to the young heir of the throne of Gwalior. The Bā'ī sent her grand-daughter on an elephant, in an amārī (a canopied seat), attended by her followers on horseback, to do pooja in the Ganges, and to give large presents to the Brahmāns. As the Gaja Rājā passed along the road, handfuls of rupees were scattered to the crowd below from the seat on the elephant. Six days after the announcement of the birth of a son, the King sent for the Resident, and, looking very sheepish, was obliged to confess the son was a daughter! The Resident was much annoyed that his beard had been laughed at; and, in all probability, the King had been deceived by the women in the zenāna: perhaps a son had really been born, and having died, a girl had been substituted;—the only child procurable, perhaps, at the moment, or approved of by the mother. A zenāna is the very birth-place of intrigue.

30th.—I am busy with preparations for a march; perhaps, in my rambles, I shall visit Lucnow, see the new King, and my old friend the Nawāb Hakīm Menhdī in all his glory. I should like very much to visit the zenāna, for, although the King be about seventy, there is no reason why he may not have a large zenāna, wives of all sorts and kinds,—"the black, the blue, the brown, the fair,"—for purposes of state and show.

Oct. 3rd.—At this moment a large fire is blazing away, and throwing up volumes of smoke at no great distance from our house. In this country they chop up straw very finely, as food for bullocks; an Hindū having collected a large quantity of bhūsā (this chopped straw), has of late been selling it at a very high price; in consequence, some one has set fire to the heap, and has destroyed some hundred m[)u]ns. My khansaman, looking at it, said very quietly, "He has of late sold his bhūsā at an unfairly high price, therefore they have secretly set it on fire; of course they would, it is the custom." The natives have curious ideas with respect to justice.

12th.—Called on the Bāiza Bā'ī;—really, the most agreeable visits I pay are to the Mahratta Camp.

17th.—The Padshah Begam and Moona-jah, the young Prince of Oude, whom she attempted to put on the throne, have