Monday, Jan. 12, 1840.

WE dined with Colonel J. yesterday. He lives, I believe, quite in the native style, with a few black Mrs. J.’s gracing his domestic circle when we are not here, but he borrowed St. Cloup and our cooks to dress the dinner, and it all went off very well. That little Mrs. T. looked very pretty, but Captain T. planted himself opposite to her, and frowned whenever she tried to talk, but he did not quite stop her, and another week of society would, I expect, enable her to frown again. We went to Scindia’s durbar to-day. The palace was three miles off, and we had to set off at three on elephants, and the heat and the dust and the crowd were something inconceivable, but it was a curious show. The durbar was very orderly and handsome. G. and Scindia sat together on a gold throne with a canopy, and F. and I on two silver chairs next to G., and down each side of the room were his sirdars on one side and our officers on the other. After we had sat about ten minutes, the negotiations began for our going to see the ranee, and there were many preliminaries to arrange, and at last we condescended to walk through the two rooms that led to the zenana, for fear any of the bearers should catch a glimpse of anything, and no aide-de-camp was to go for the same reason, so we walked off with Mrs. H. We had sent the two ayahs there in the morning, as Mrs. H. does not speak the language very well. Some female slaves met us at the first door, and then some cousins of the rajah’s; in the next room two stepmothers, and then an old grandmother, and at the door of her own room was the little ranee, something like a little transformed cat in a fairy tale, covered with gold tissue, and clanking with diamonds. Her feet and hands were covered with rings fastened with diamond chains to her wrists and ankles. She laid hold of our hands and led us to her throne, which was like the rajah’s, without a canopy, and her women lifted her up, and we sat on each side of her, and then all the relations sat in two rows on chairs, and looked uncomfortable, and the nautch girls began dancing. The ranee is only eight years old, and is the sister of his first wife, on whom he doted, and on her death-bed she made him promise to marry this child. She was so shy, she would hardly let us see her face, but the old women talked for her, and the presents filled up the time, for the rajah had ordered that she should put all the jewellery on us with her own little hands. I had a diamond necklace and a collar, some native pearl earrings that hung nearly down to the waist, and a beautiful pair of diamond bracelets, and the great article of all was an immense diamond tiara. I luckily could not keep this on with a bonnet. They were valued altogether at 2,400l., the mere stones. F.’s were of different shapes, some very pretty, but not so costly, but altogether it was an immense prize for the Company. Then we had a bale of shawls, and the ayahs got six shawls, and Mrs. H. a necklace, and besides all the diamonds, they hung flowers all over us. We must have looked like mad tragedy queens when we came out, but everybody was transmogrified in the same way. Some years ago, it might have made us laugh, but W. and Mr. A., with great necklaces of flowers on, led us gravely back to our silver chairs, and there was G., sitting bolt upright, a pattern of patience, with a string of pearls as big as peas round his neck, a diamond ring on one hand and a large sapphire on the other, and a cocked hat embroidered in pearls at his side. We came home through a grand illumination, and were thoroughly tired at last.

Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Scindia returned G.’s visit to-day, and the ceremonies were much the same, and I think our presents were almost handsomer than his. G. asked him to come for a secret conference into the shawl tent with silver poles that Runjeet gave us, and in that was the gold bed inlaid with rubies, also Runjeet’s, on which they both sat, with B. and A., Colonel J. on one side and the rajah’s two ministers on the other. It looked mysterious and conspiring, and the rajah’s followers were in a horrid state of alarm; they said their king had been carried off, and had no guards, and perhaps never would be let out again. G. and the rajah transacted a little real business, and then G. got up and asked him to accept the tent and the bed, which quite delighted him, and he went away.

We went on to see a much more interesting little durbar. G. had all the old soubadars and havildars of the regiments that have been with us, all through this march, and some of the body-guard, and gave them each a gun and a pair of shawls. One old fellow has been fifty-eight years in the service, and would tell his story here: he had been at Java in Lord Minto’s time, and so on, and he had five medals to show, another had four; they are all most respectable natives. Their great desire was that G. should pour attar on their hands, with his own hand, which is a great distinction; and altogether it was a very touching sight, and has pleased all the troops very much.

We had a great dinner of all the officers afterwards, which luckily was not formal; as there was a Mr. V., a cousin of Lady B.’s, who sings beautifully, without accompaniment, and filled up the evening very pleasantly.

Wednesday.

The camp moved three miles to-day, that G. might be nearer the garden-house where the rajah was to give him a dinner, and we came over such roads! I wonder the carriage stood it. The dinner was all in the native style, but would have been eatable, G. says, only he was on so high a chair that he never could pick up a morsel from the table. The rajah sent F. and me some dinner—three kids roasted whole, and covered with gold and silver leaf, a deer, and about fifty dishes of sorts, much to the delight of the servants. Wright and Jones with Rosina went to take our return presents to the little ranee, and were charmed with their visit.

Thursday.

G. went to a long tiresome review to-day, and F. and C. went with Captain X., Mr. H., and Dr. D. to visit Donheit Rao’s tomb. The baizee baee erected it fifteen years ago. There is a black marble figure of him, dressed in the same sort of gold stuff he always wore, and with all his jewels on, and as, being of black marble, he cannot go to Mahadeo’s temple to say prayers, Mahadeo is brought and put on a table before him. Food is served up to him three times a day, and there is a nautch going on while he is supposed to eat. They were nautching all the time we were there, and I think the marble man liked it. The baee endowed the tomb with five villages, and the Brahmins in attendance eat up the food the marble man leaves. It has made rather a good sketch. G. said, while the review was going on, the sirdar who had been with us came and reported that the ladies had been to the tomb and had been so much pleased that they made a drawing of it, and that they had returned safely to camp, and the maharajah sent his compliments, and said he was glad to hear of our safety. I never felt much afraid, did you? but then I have sketched before, and know what it is.

Friday, Jan. 17.

I declare I think Scindia a very nice young man, likely to turn out well. There is an enamelled little box of spices that comes every day with the uneatable food he sends for luncheon, and I took it up one day and commented upon its beauty. I suppose our servants told his, for to-day Colonel E. arrived with Bajee Rao and another Vakeel, who had brought the little spice-box in a palanquin, with a message from the rajah that he heard I had admired it, and that he had sent it as a private present to me, that if the Company were to have it, he did not give it at all, but that Colonel E. was to arrange so that I should have it. G. has paid its value to the Company, which is the simplest arrangement, though he hardly ever will give leave to have anything bought by private contract, but in this instance where there was no return present he did. Colonel E. is very angry that it should be paid for because it was entirely a private present, but I see the value of the rule. It was very good-natured of the rajah to think of it, and I shall keep my little spice-box with a tender recollection of him, to say nothing of its being a lovely little article, per se.

Saturday, Jan. 18.

I should like to have kept this open till your letter arrived, but G. seems to think the great packet may not come till to-morrow. Still, I think I won’t send it. G. may be wrong, everybody is occasionally. In the meantime, I beg to say we have left Gwalior, and I shall have nothing to see, or say, till we get back to Calcutta. So you need hardly read the next journal—it will be so very heavy.

W. and I got up by a wrong gun this morning, one of Scindia’s. There is no carriage road, so we all travel separately in tonjauns, or on elephants, or horses or anyhow; and after I had set off in a great fuss at being so late, G.’s first gun fired. I found W. scrambling along on a pony, under the same delusion; and we got in here an hour before the others, riding the last six miles as hard as we could. I was glad to be in soon, the weather is so very hot. It has been cold for about three weeks this year.—God bless you! I have been trying to read over my journal and have stuck in it. What very heavy reading it is!

Jan. 20.

I have kept this open for two days, in hopes that the letters would come in, but we have just got all the Galignanis with an announcement from Bombay, that the Falmouth packet is not come at all; and all your letters are there—and everybody’s. It is so disheartening!—We cannot have them for five weeks.