Sunday, Oct. 13.
We have the deputation from Kurruck Singh up here now, and had a very pretty durbar yesterday, to which they brought their presents. We asked a few ladies who had never seen a durbar, to come, and put them behind the crowd, and they thought it a beautiful sight. While the durbar was going on, there came an express to Mr. A., saying that Noor Mahal Singh, the heir-apparent, and Dhian Singh had gone into Kurruck’s durbar and shot at a favourite of his, Cheyt Singh, who was sitting so close to his master that some of the shot went into Kurruck’s foot; he begged them to kill him and spare his favourite, but they finished Cheyt with their sabres. We give the soldiers a ball to-morrow, and on Tuesday begin to pack up. I keep thinking it is the first step towards going home to you, dear M., but I wish you lived more handy like.
My journey will be shorter than the others’. I leave the camp at Agra; as G. and the rest of the party leave the camp at Gwalior, and will not be at Calcutta till the beginning of April. I shall be housed at the end of February.
CHAPTER XLIV.
Simla, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1839.
IT is rather soon to begin again, but habit is everything, and there is a little more to say while the Sikhs are here. Our ball for them last night went off very well. I had the verandahs all closed in with branches of trees, and carpets put down and lamps put up, and the house looked a great deal larger. The chiefs were in splendid gold dresses, and certainly very gentleman-like men. They sat bolt upright on their chairs with their feet dangling, and I dare say suffered agonies from cramp. C. said we saw them amazingly divided between the necessity of listening to G. and their native feelings of not seeming surprised, and their curiosity at men and women dancing together. I think that they learned at least two figures of the quadrilles by heart, for I saw Gholâb Singh, the commander of the Goorcherras, who has been with Europeans before, expounding the dancing to the others.
The two chief sirdars were not even at Lahore when we were there. I thought they might eventually be taught to flirt, and wanted Mr. A. to try and make up a match between the old fakeer and old Miss J., who is between sixty and seventy, and something like the fakeer. Mr. A. was quite willing, but unluckily Miss J. did not come.
Thursday, Oct. 17.
The gentlemen got up some racing yesterday, to which the Sikhs came, and we all went. Racing is one of the few amusements they can enter into, and they were very much amused. G. gave a silver hookah to be run for, and the aides-de-camp a silver cheroot box, &c. The Sikhs saw us drawing a lottery for the races and enquired what it meant, and in their quick way set one up. Lehna Singh sent word to twelve of his guards to start; wrote all their names in Persian on bits of paper, and said with a complacent smile, ‘Lotteree.’
Their races were very funny. They started as fast as the horse could go—no Sikh horse can gallop 100 yards—and then they trotted on, or walked, or stopped; but towards the winning-post the first man always came in waving his whip over his head, looking in a prodigious hurry, with the others at least a quarter of a mile behind. They rode with their heavy shields and helmets on, and one man in chain-armour, which helped to break his horse’s leg. However, G. gave him a new horse, and gave the four winners a pair of shawls each, so they thought English racing quite delightful.