Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/81

 she took her matchlock, performing a sort of mimic fight, turning on her saddle as she retreated at full gallop, and firing over her horse's tail. She rode beautifully and most gracefully. When the exhibition was over, we retired to my dressing-room: she told me she had just arrived from Juggernāth, and was now en route to Lahore to Runjeet Singh. She was anxious I should try the lance exercise on her steed, which I would have done, had I possessed the four walls of a zenāna, within which to have made the attempt.

What does Sir Charles Metcalfe intend to do with the poor Bā'ī? what will be her fate? this wet weather she must be wretched in tents. The Lieutenant-Governor leaves Allahabad for Agra, in the course of a day or two.

In the evening I paid my respects to her Highness. I happened to have on a long rosary and cross of black beads; she was pleased with it, and asked me to procure some new rosaries for her, that they might adorn the idols, whom they dress up, like the images of the saints in France, with all sorts of finery.

She showed me a necklace of gold coins, which appeared to be Venetian: the gold of these coins is reckoned the purest of all, and they sell at a high price. The natives assert they come from the eastward, and declare that to the East is a miraculous well, into which, if copper coins be thrown, they come out after a time the very purest of gold. In the sketch entitled "Superstitions of the Natives," No. 8 represents a coin of this enchanted well: they are called Putlī, and the following extract makes me consider them Venetian:—

"It was in the reign of John Dandolo, 1285, that gold zecchini (sequins) were first struck in Venice. But before they could be issued, the Doge had to obtain the permission of the Emperor and the Pope. These zecchini bore the name and image of the Doge, at first seated on a ducal throne, but afterwards he was represented standing; and, finally, in the latter times of the Republic, on his knees, receiving from the hands of St. Mark the standard of the Republic."

The necklace, which was a wedding present to the bride, consisted of three rows of silken cords, as thickly studded with