The temple of Bhawānī is shaded by a most beautiful peepul-tree, from the centre of which a fakīr’s flag was flying; it stands in a plantation of mango-trees. I desired an Hindoo, who was present when I sketched the temple, to count the suttee-graves around it. As he counted them, he repeatedly made sālām to each mound.
The kulsa, Fig. 8, is made of common unglazed red pottery: there are five points—one at the top, the others placed at equal spaces around it; between the points are two figures of human beings, and two emblems like a moon and a crescent, see Fig. 9. The kulsa is hollow, and has five holes, through which the points, which are of solid earthenware, are introduced before baking, see Fig. 10: height, ten inches and a half; circumference just below the points, twenty-six inches; diameter at bottom, six inches. The kulsa, Fig. 7, is another from a large suttee at the same spot, of a different form; they call it a topee walla kulsa. The suttees in the sketch of the temple of Bhawānī are all of masonry; the mounds are invisible, lying at the back of the temple.
Nov.—My beautiful Arab, Mootee, after taking a most marvellous quantity of blue vitriol and opium, has recovered, but will be unfit for my riding; the sinews of his fore-leg are injured; besides which, he is rather too playful; he knocked down his sā’īs yesterday, tore his clothes to pieces, bit two bits of flesh out of his back, and would perhaps have killed him, had not the people in the bazār interfered and rescued the man. It was an odd freak, he is such a sweet-tempered animal, and I never knew him behave incorrectly before.
We spent the month of December, our hunting season, at Papamhow; and purchased several couple of the Berkeley hounds, from the Calcutta kennel, for the pack at Allahabad. I received a present of an excellent little black horse with a long tail; and, mounted on him, used to go out every day after the jackals and foxes. I am rich in riding-horses, and the dark brown stud Arab Trelawny bids fair to rival Mootee in my affections. Returning from chasing a jackal one evening, it was very dark, and as Captain A⸺ S⸺ was cantering his Arab across the parade-ground, the animal put his foot into a deep hole, and fell; our friend thought nothing of it, and refused to be bled; a few days afterwards the regiment quitted Allahabad, and he died the second day, on the march to Benares. He was an ill-fated animal, that little horse of his: they called him an Arab pony, but no good caste animal would have been so vicious; he had one fault, a trick of biting at the foot of his rider—he bit off the toe of his former master, mortification ensued, and the man died. I often wished to mount him, but they would never allow me: the creature was very handsome, and remarkably well formed; doubtless a native would have found unlucky marks upon him—at that time I was ignorant respecting samāt, or unlucky marks on horses.
CHAPTER XI.
RESIDENCE AT PRĀG.
“I KEEP WRITING ON UPON THE PRINCIPLE OF A GOOD ECONOMIST, THAT IT IS A PITY SO MUCH PAPER SHOULD BE LOST, WHICH, LIKE THE QUEER LITTLE OLD MAN IN THE SONG, ‘HAS A LONG WAY TO GO.’”
“WHAT RELIANCE IS THERE ON LIFE[40]?”
“HE WHO HAS ILL-LUCK FOR HIS COMPANION WILL BE BITTEN BY A DOG ALTHOUGH MOUNTED ON A CAMEL[41].”
1829—March to Benares—Misfortunes en suite—The Hummām of the Rajah—Flowers of Wax and Ubruk—Return to Prāg—Storm en route—Gram—A Central Government—Thieves, Domestic—Snake in the Stable—Death in a Pālkee—Power of the Sun to change the Sex—Lord William Bentinck—Half-Batta—The Jaws of the Crocodile—The Clipper—Discontent of the Army—Recovery of the Stolen Rupees—The Gosāin—Ram Din—The Ancient Temple.