Dieg, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 1839.

THE Bhurtpore Rajah came out to meet G. to-day with a pretty retinue, odd-looking carriages and horses covered with gold, but he is a fat, hideous young man himself. We went in the afternoon to see the palace at Dieg, which the rajahs used to live in before the siege of Bhurtpore, but they make no use of it now, which is a pity. The gardens are intersected in all directions by fountains, and the four great buildings at each side of the garden, which make up their palaces, are great masses of open colonnades with baths, or small rooms screened off by carved white marble slabs, and the fountains play all round the halls, so that even in the hot winds, Mr. H. says, it is cool in the centre of these halls. It was a very pretty sight to-day, from the crowds of people mixed up with the spring of the waters; and the Mahrattas wear such beautiful scarlet turbans covered with gold or silver cords, that they showed it off well.

There is a Colonel E. come into camp to-day: he is the Resident at Gwalior, and is come to fetch us. He is about the largest man I ever saw, and always brings his own chair with him, because he cannot fit into any other. He has lived so entirely with natives that I fancy he very seldom sits on a chair at all, and I suppose he is, as —— says, very shy of white females, for it was impossible to get an answer from him. It is a curious fact that the very * * *

Khoomberee, Wednesday, Dec. 11.

I would give anything to know what curious fact I was going to tell you. You never will know it now, that is certain. To finish off Colonel E., I must mention that the officer who commands his escort is called Snook, and that his godfathers, to make it worse, called him Violet. He is a little man, about five feet high, and is supposed to have called out three people for calling him Snooks instead of Snook. I am giving up my plan of leaving G. at Agra. He has cut off a month of his tour, and means to go straight to Calcutta from Gwalior, which is seven marches longer than my road, and with six days there, he would only be thirteen days later than me; the old khansamah has set his face steadily against it. He says, I have no business to leave the Lord Sahib, and that if I take away one steamboat full of baggage and servants, he cannot make show enough at Gwalior. Moreover, I am so well this year, I have no excuse for idleness, when it would be so generally inconvenient; and I do not like to leave G. and F. for two months, now that it only saves thirteen days. We shall all be at Calcutta by the first of March now.

Bhurtpore, Thursday, Dec. 12.

We had some cheeta hunting on the way here. Antelopes abound, there are hundreds of them to be seen at a time; the cheetas are put in carts like the common hackeries the natives use, and which the antelopes are accustomed to see, so they do not get much out of the way, and when the cart is within 400 yards, the cheeta’s hood is taken off, and he makes two or three bounds and generally knocks down the antelope. If he fails after a few bounds, he gets disgusted and comes back to the cart. There were two or three good chases this morning but no antelope killed, which was rather a blessing. We went so much out of the road, that the regiments and all their baggage got before us, and we could not go on in the carriage, and had to ride seven miles which I thought long. The Bhurtpore Rajah came to the durbar in the afternoon. He is the ugliest and fattest young man I ever saw. A small face that takes up the usual space of the chin, and all the rest is head. He is very black, marked with the small-pox, and can hardly waddle for fat, and is only twenty-one. He was just six years old when Lord Combermere put him on his throne.

Bhurtpore, Friday, Dec. 13.

The rajah is supposed to have the best shooting in India, and was to give G. the most delightful sport, so there was such a fuss to be off at six in the morning, and such a tribe of elephants, and such jealousy as to who was to go, and how many, and perhaps a slight wonder as to how all the game was to be disposed of; and they were out five hours, and came back in a frenzy; G. having shot one quail and a wild cat, and some one else a partridge, and another had seen a hare, and the rajah had said at the end that he hoped the Lord Sahib was ‘bhote razee,’ which means more than quite delighted with his day’s sport. I think he must be facetious though he does not look so. Mr. R. stayed behind to let F. and me see some hawking, and we took Mrs. C. and Mrs. R. and several of the officers and went into a boat with a large raised platform, and the men with hawks went wading into the water and put up wild ducks which the hawks invariably caught. We could not complain of want of sport, but it is rather a butchering business.

Futtehpore-Sickrey, Saturday, Dec. 14.

We went to a beautiful fÊte last night, I never saw such illuminations anywhere. The whole town for two miles was lit up with straight rows of lamps, and at the palace there was a square of lights with four great arches three stories high, with doors and windows all built of lamps. The whole thing was very well ordered.

The rajah took G. into an immense hall fitted up in the oddest way with French chandeliers of green and purple and yellow glass, as thick as they could be hung. Looking-glasses, and old-fashioned mirrors, and English prints on the wall. At the end there was the ‘chamber of daÏs,’ very much painted and gilded, and raised three steps, and there we were all ‘set of a row,’ G. on one side of the rajah and I on the other, and all our party in chairs, and his prime minister in the centre. All round the hall were the officers of the escort and their wives, and the Bhurtpore chiefs, and in the middle a very select assembly of nautch-girls. I never saw so orderly a native party. The rajah was very nervous at first, and his wide black face full of twitches, but Mr. H. says he was very much pleased with the success of his party, as it is the first time he has ever seemed to act for himself. It is always a dull job, except that I like to look at the nautching, which bores most people. The prime minister’s little boy was introduced, a deformed little animal, and G. gave him a diamond ring, which was unexpected and well taken.

Then after G.’s trays of presents were taken away, there came in six for me and six for F. of rather nice little articles, dressing gowns of cloth of gold lined with cashemere, ivory chowries and fans, silver tissue for turbans—very pretty pickings if they had been private presents, but I saw C. twisting his moustaches in agonies, because they were not intrinsically worth the diamond rings we gave in exchange. I fancied the Rajah smelt very strongly of green fat, and as it was past eight, and we are used to early dinners in camp, I thought in my hunger, what a pity it was that we had not brought St. Cloup, who in half-an-hour would have warmed the rajah up into excellent turtle soup. We had a march of seventeen miles this morning, the longest we have ever had, so of course the wheel of the carriage locked, before we had gone a hundred yards. We have never had an accident before, this year. Webb had gone on with the key, so we took refuge on two elephants and jogged on four miles, and then overtook our tonjauns into which F. and I subsided. Then Mr. H. came up driving Captain Z. in his buggy and set him down in the road and took me. Ten minutes after, Dr. D. caught up F. and drove her on. Mr. H. and I drove wildly on, looking for a conveyance for G. and thought ourselves uncommonly clever in overtaking and bringing together four of our carriage horses, and the palanquin carriage which is drawn by bullocks when it is not wanted, and then we found that the pole was sent on in a cart, and there was nothing but the bullock yoke, so we drove on discomfited. Then we came to an empty buggy and put a trooper to guard it and sent another back to tell G. it was there, but it turned out that it belonged to —— of the body guard, who has been in constant scrapes and is under arrest, so G. could not well take that. However, H. found his own horse for him, and altogether we got into camp in very good time, but half the people came in late with all sorts of difficulties. Camp conveyances are very good for ten or twelve miles, but always fail on a long march; the bearers get tired and out of sorts. We pass Mrs. ——, your likeness, every morning, with her bearers guarded by two sepoys, because they will put down the tonjaun and run away.

Merahoon, Monday.

It was lucky we had our halt at Futtehpore-Sickrey. Except Delhi, it is the most interesting place we have seen, and there is more to sketch, and in these hurried journeys I do not think it any sin to sketch on Sunday. There is a tomb of marble here, carved like lace—it would make such a splendid dairy for Windsor Castle, it looks so cool and so royal—and there is a beautiful gateway, the arch of which is ninety feet high; and then there are some remains of the Emperor Akbar, which give a good idea of the magnificent fellow he was. The throne in which he sat to hear petitions stands in the centre of a hall, with a cross of stone balconies abutting from it, to four open arches. His ministers were placed at each end of that cross, their seats looking out on the courts below, so any grievance that was stated to them, or against them, they were obliged to announce at the full extent of their voices, else the emperor could not hear them, and the petitioner below was made certain that his grievance was rightly stated. This throne, &c., is most beautifully carved, as you will see whenever I send my sketch books home. There is also a lovely carved room, all over European devices, supposed to have been built by the directions of a favourite wife, whom he imported from Constantinople. In the centre of the court, a pucheesee board (pucheesee is a sort of chess) is laid out in squares of marble, and there is a raised seat on which Akbar sat and played the games; the pieces were all female slaves splendidly dressed, and whoever won carried off the sixteen ladies.

Agra, Wednesday, Dec. 18.

We came here yesterday and went off the same afternoon to see the Taj, which is quite as beautiful, even more so, than we had expected after all we have heard, and as we have never heard of anything else, that just shows how entirely perfect it must be. You must have heard and read enough about it, so I spare you any more, but it really repays a great deal of the trouble of the journey. We passed the day in the tents, as they were more convenient for G.’s levÉe, and in the afternoon came on to this delightful house, which was Sir Charles Metcalfe’s and is now Mr. H.’s, who has good-naturedly entrenched himself in one wing and settled us in the rest. It is beautifully furnished, and so clean and quiet. I really love it—it is so pleasant not to feel dusty.

Friday, Dec. 20.

We went yesterday to see Secundra, where Akbar is buried, and his tomb of beautiful white marble is up four stories of grotesque buildings, well worth seeing; so much so that, as G. had a durbar to-night and could not go out, F. and I went back alone, and had rather a rest, in sketching there, for two hours, but it is impossible to make anything of these elaborate Mogul buildings, they are all lines and domes, and uncommonly trying to the patience. We are attempting to buy Agra marbles and curiosities, but somehow cannot find many, and those we ordered before we came down are not half done, but they will be very pretty. I have got two little tombs, facsimiles of Shah Jehan’s and his wife’s, with all the same little patterns inlaid. Valuable—but I wish they were not quite so dear. We were at home on Thursday night—there seem to be a great many people at Agra. Mrs. H., who was a Miss A., is very pretty and nice. We stay here till the 1st, and this fortnight of rest from tents is a great comfort. My small health is uncommonly good just now.