The ektara, a one-stringed instrument, as the name implies, is used by wandering minstrels. A man of this description, the veritable Paganini of the East, appeared before me the other day; he was an Hindoo mendicant, carrying an ektara, which was formed of a gourd; and on its one string he played in a strange and peculiar style. From the upper end of the ektara two peacock’s feathers were displayed. The man’s attire was a rope around his waist, and a bit of cloth; a black blanket hung over his shoulder; on his forehead, breast, and arms were the sectarial marks, and the brahmanical thread was over his shoulder; three necklaces and one bracelet completed the costume. His hair fell to his shoulders, and, like all natives, he wore a moustache. My friends laugh at me when I play on the sitar, and ask, “Why do you not put a peacock’s feather at the end of it?”
Dec. 1st.—We have become great farmers, having sown our crop of oats, and are building outhouses to receive some thirty-four dwarf cows and oxen (gynees), which are to be fed up for the table, and produced after some eight months’ stuffing. The gynee club consists of eight members, and it gives us better food than we could procure from the bazār: “Whose dog am I that I should eat from the bazār?”
A little distance from the stacks the unmuzzled bullocks are treading out the corn: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.” This patriarchal method breaks and renders the straw soft and friable; the corn is winnowed by taking it up in a basket and pouring it out; the grain falls to the ground, while the west wind blows the chaff into a heap beyond. The corn is deposited in a large pit, which has been duly prepared by having had the walls well dried and hardened from a fire burning in it for many days. These pits are carefully concealed by the natives, and their armies have people, called soonghees or smellers, whose business it is to find out these underground and secret granaries.
Our friend Col. Gardner is still at Lucnow, which, in all probability, will speedily be taken into the hands of the British government for its better protection! The King has lately dismissed a man of great talent, who was his prime minister, and put in a fool by way of a change. The consequence is already felt in the accounts of the royal treasury. It is said it is impossible to collect the revenue without force, and that where that has been used, his Majesty’s forces have been beaten.
A friend writes from England, “I shall always regret having quitted India without having seen Col. Gardner and the Taj.”
He is a very remarkable man; his age nearly seventy, I believe. I had a long letter from him two days since, full of all the playfulness of youth, and of all kindness. I never met so entertaining or so instructive a companion; his life, if he would publish it, would be indeed a legacy, and shame our modern biography.
20th.—For the first time this year it has been cold enough to collect ice; during my early ride this morning I saw the coolies gathering it into the pits.