Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/76

 a native disengaged it from the tail of the animal. A pleasant bite it must have been, that string covered with pounded glass! Yah! yah! how very absurd! I wish you had seen the tamāshā. In the evening we dined with Sir Charles Metcalfe; he was residing at Papamhow. He told me he was thinking of cutting down the avenue of nīm trees (melia azadirachta), that led from the house to the river; I begged hard that it might be spared, assuring him that the air around nīm trees was reckoned wholesome by the natives, while that around the tamarind was considered very much the contrary. In front of my rooms, in former days, at Papamhow, was a garden, full of choice plants, and a very fine young India-rubber tree; it was pleasant to see the bright green of the large glossy leaves of the caoutchouc tree, which flourished so luxuriantly. In those days, many flowering trees adorned the spot; among which the katchnar (bauhinia), both white and rose-coloured and variegated, was remarkable for its beauty. Sir Charles had destroyed my garden, without looking to see what trees he was cutting down; he had given the ruthless order. I spoke of and lamented the havoc he had occasioned; to recompense me, he promised to spare the avenue; which, when I revisited it years afterwards, was in excellent preservation.

14th.—The Bāiza Bā'ī sent for me in great haste; she was in alarm respecting the Gaja Rājā, who was ill of epidemic fever. Having lost her daughter, the Chimna Bā'ī, of fever, when she was driven out of Gwalior by her rebellious subjects, she was in the utmost distress, lest her only remaining hope and comfort, her young grand-daughter, should be taken from her. I urged them to call in European medical advice; they hesitated to do so, as a medical man might neither see the young Princess, nor feel her pulse. I drove off, and soon returned with the best native doctress to be procured; but, from what I heard at the consultation, it may be presumed her skill is not very great.

The Nawāb Hakīm Menhdī is very ill; I fear his days are numbered.

The murder of Mr. Frazer, by the Nawāb Sumshoodeen, at Delhi, who bribed a man called Kureem Khan to shoot him, took place when I was at Colonel Gardner's; no one could believe it