KootÛb, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 1839.

WE made this our first march, as most of the camp have not seen it. It is the most magnificent pillar, I suppose, in the world, and looks as if it had been built yesterday; but all the fine ruins about it have crumbled away sadly, even since we were here two years ago.

Those diamond bracelets were not worth half what the man asked for them, which I am rather glad of, as I think it would have been a waste of money, and we do not want more trinkets.

G. and I had to go last night to a play, got up by amateurs, which was rather a failure, because the chief character did not happen to know a single word of his part, and that put out all the others, but they thought it rather good themselves.

This morning the General insisted on having all the troops paraded at six in the morning, and so, as F. still has her cold, and G. hates being left by himself, I had to ride out of camp. It was nearly dark, and they fired the salutes right into the horses’ faces, and then poked their colours into their eyes, and drummed ‘God save the King’ into their ears, all which induced them to prance. I thought it rather dangerous, very noisy, and extremely tiresome, and I could not think of a word to say to General M. that I had not said at least eight times over in the last three days, so I was glad when he thought he had convoyed us out of his grounds, and if we ever go back to Delhi again I hope there will be a new General, so that the same topics may serve me again and look fresh.

I had a great mind to tell him that I felt very ill, which was quite true, but as the water at Delhi is invariably a rank poison that would have been nothing new.

Bullumghur, Friday, Nov. 29.

We had made a pretty arrangement yesterday to go to a small private camp at Toglichabad; a very old town with some splendid ruins about it, and there had been a road made for us, and supplies sent; but then F.’s cold was still bad, and my Delhi illness was worse than ever, so we gave it up, though it looked inconsistent and foolish after all the fuss that had been made, and X. says there was a quantity to see and sketch. I have only been able to make four sketches since we left Simla, for dearth of subjects; but I am glad we did not go, I had such a headache. Half the camp was poisoned at Delhi.

Sunday, Dec. 1.

We are all well again; and just think of the pleasure of the October mail arriving this morning, only a fortnight after the last. G. has a letter of the 16th, only just six weeks old, but there is some mistake about yours and the letters of the family in general. They are sent off a fortnight too soon: at least we always have public letters and papers dated a fortnight later, and those newspapers, besides taking off the edge of the news for half the next month, put me in a fright. I am so afraid, after hearing that you were well and prosperous the 8th of September, of finding in the ‘Morning Chronicle’ of October 12th, that C. D., Esq., who lives not 100 miles from Newsalls, was taken before the magistrates for beating M. his wife, and tearing her hair and her best shawl; or else that your new house in Stratton Street had been burnt down before you could insure it, and that you had lost your little all, and perhaps were found begging in the streets, surrounded by your nine children, and causing an obstruction at Hyde Park Corner. Do you know, that whenever I read a heap of English papers at once, ‘indeed, indeed I’m very very sick,’ there is such a quantity of crime. This time the cruelty to children and apprentices has put me in a frenzy, and there are at least eight exemplary wives murdered by their husbands, and one murderer gets off with six months’ imprisonment, because his lawyer chooses to make a pert attack on Lord ——, which pleases the Recorder—so like English justice. I am also very low about politics. I hate all those last changes, and I wish the Whigs would go quietly and respectably out in a body, and leave the Tories and Radicals to fight it out.

Wednesday, Dec. 4.

Last night, when we were playing at whist, I saw X. fidgeting about behind G.’s chair with a note in his hand, and began to think you were ill, and had sent for me to your tent, or something of that sort; but it turned out to be an express with another little battle, and a most successful one. The Khan of KhelÂt was by way of being our ally and assistant, and professing friendship; did himself the pleasure of cutting off the supplies of the army when it was on its way to Cabul; set his followers on to rob the camp; corresponded with Dost Mahomed, &c.

There was no time to fight with him then, and I suppose he was beginning to think himself secure; but G. directed the Bombay army, on its way home, to settle this little KhelÂt trouble. General —— was led to suppose his place was not a strong one, and took only 1,000 men with him, but he found KhelÂt a very strong fort with plenty of guns, and the Khan at the head of 2,000 soldiers. It was all done in the Ghuznee manner—the gates blown in and the fort stormed—but the fighting was very severe. The Khan and his principal chiefs died sword in hand, which was rather too fine a death for such a double traitor as he has been; and one in six of our troops were either killed or wounded, which is an unusual proportion. They found in the town a great many of our camels and much of the property that had been pillaged from the army. Also there will be a great deal of prize money. Another man has been put on the KhelÂt throne, so that business is finished.

Bindrabund, Saturday, Dec. 7.

This is a famous Hindu place, and we have come a march out of the way to look at it, partly because there is a great deal to see, and then that the sepoys and half our camp may perform their devotions. The Hindu devotions are always inexplicable, except in the simple fact that the Brahmins cheat them out of a quantity of money, and our Mussulmaun servants cannot be sufficiently contemptuous to-day as to the state of affairs.

Monkeys and peacocks are sacred here, and consequently abound; and then they have a tradition that Krishna (who seems to have been a larking sort of Apollo) played various pranks here, and, amongst other little jokes, stole all the clothes of the wives of the cowherds when they went into the river to bathe, and carried them to the top of a tree, to which they were obliged to come and beg, before he would give them back. He is adored here for the delicacy of this freak, and a temple has been built to commemorate it.

We went yesterday to visit all the temples and ruins under the guidance of ——, who led us quite wrong and wasted our time at modern temples, when we wanted to see the old ruins, but he rather made up for it by taking us in boats on the Jumna to look at the ghauts. However, the whole thing was done in state, with tribes of elephants, and dust, and all the camp, and the secretaries, who never let us say or see anything comfortably; so F. and I settled to stay behind to-day, when the camp moved, and to pass our morning in an old Jain temple of singular beauty, red granite magnificently carved, but the roof and half the heads of the statues were knocked off by Aurungzebe in a fit of Mussulmaun bigotry. X. and P. stayed with us, and we all settled ourselves in different corners of the building, with a quantity of grains and sweetmeats in the middle, to keep the monkeys quiet. Our breakfast was laid out in a sort of side aisle of grotesque Hindu columns, and at each column was a servant with a long stick keeping off the monkeys from the tea and chocolate. One very enterprising monkey rushed down and carried off my Indian rubber, which is a great loss to me, and I trust it disagreed with him. It was an elaborate building to sketch, and we were nearly four hours about it, but we all succeeded more or less; and it was so cool and dark in the temple, it made it quite a pleasant morning, to say nothing of a brass antique teapot and some lovely little brass goats which X. bought for me coming back.

Muttra, Sunday, Dec. 8.

We came on in the evening to camp, and found G. at a durbar receiving a Vakeel from the Bhurtpore Rajah and a visit from Luckund Chund, the richest banker in India. He has two millions of money in Company’s paper at Calcutta, and only draws the interest once in four years. He is a jeweller also by trade, and has some very handsome emeralds in camp to dispose of. He brought 101 trays of presents, which gladdened Mr. C.’s heart. We had a large congregation this morning, as there is a troop of artillery here, and the English soldiers looked so well and homelike at church.

Goverdun, Monday, Dec. 9.

These have been very good sight-seeing days, and I think I like Hindus just now better than Mussulmauns. They consider trees sacred, and that makes their country so much prettier. We went to a beautiful tomb this afternoon surrounded by old temples and tombs belonging to the Bhurtpore Rajah. The inside of one temple is painted with the original siege of Bhurtpore and Lord Lake running away—the Europeans were originally painted running away without their heads, but that has been rectified. Then we went to what they call a chuttree, or something of that kind, a place where there has been a suttee, and there are some lovely temples built over the ashes. There never is time enough for sketching, which is a pity.