Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/29

 with rose-water: the more you inundate your visitor with rose-water, the greater the compliment.

This being the signal for departure, we rose, made our bahut bahut adab salām, and departed, highly gratified with our visit to her Highness the ex-Queen of Gwalior.

14th.—My relative had a remarkably beautiful Arab, and as I wished to show the Bā'ī a good horse, she being an excellent judge, I requested him to allow me to ride his Arab; and that he might be fresh, I sent him on to await my arrival at the zenāna gates. A number of Mahratta horsemen having been despatched by her Highness to escort me to the camp, I cantered over with them on my little black horse, and found the beautiful Arab impatiently awaiting my arrival.

"With the champèd bit, and the archèd crest, And the eye of a listening deer, And the spirit of fire that pines at its rest,  And the limbs that laugh at fear."

Leetle Paul's description of his "courser proud" is beautiful; but his steed was not more beautiful than the Arab, who, adorned with a garland of freshly-gathered white double jasmine flowers, pawed impatiently at the gates. I mounted him, and entering the precincts of the zenāna, found myself in a large court, where all the ladies of the ex-Queen were assembled, and anxiously looking for the English lady, who would ride crooked! The Bā'ī was seated in the open air; I rode up, and, dismounting, paid my respects. She remarked the beauty of the Arab, felt the hollow under his jaw, admired his eye, and, desiring one of the ladies to take up his foot, examined it, and said he had the small, black, hard foot of the pure Arab; she examined and laughed at my saddle. I then mounted, and putting the Arab on his mettle, showed her how English ladies manage their horses. When this was over, three of the Bāiza Bā'ī's own riding horses were brought out by the female attendants; for we were within the zenāna, where no man is allowed to enter. The horses were in full caparison, the saddles covered with velvet and kimkwhab and gold embroidery, their heads and necks ornamented