Ladies of rank are accustomed to be put to sleep by a slave who relates some fairy tale. To be able to invent and relate some romantic or hobgoblin adventure, in an agreeable manner, is a valuable accomplishment. I have often heard the monotonous tone with which women of this description lulled the Begam to sleep. To invent and relate stories and fables is the only employment of these persons. The male slaves put their masters to sleep in the same fashion.
Native beds (charpāī) are about one foot high from the ground; people of rank have the feet of these couches covered with thick plates of gold or silver, which is handsomely embossed with flowers. A less expensive, but still a very pretty sort, are of Bareilly work, in coloured flowers; some are merely painted red, green, or yellow; and those used by the poor are of plain mango wood. From the highest to the lowest the shape is all the same, the difference is in the material and the workmanship; no posts, no curtains. The seat of the bed is formed of newār (broad cotton tape), skilfully interlaced, drawn up tight as a drum-head, but perfectly elastic. It is the most luxurious couch imaginable, and a person accustomed to the charpāī of India will spend many a restless night ere he can sleep with comfort on an English bed.
A Musalmānī lady will marry an English gentleman, but she will not permit him to be present during the time of meals. Mr. Gardner and Mulka have three children, two boys and a girl; they are remarkably handsome, intelligent children, and appeared as gay and happy as possible. They always wore rich native dresses,—a most becoming style of attire. The name of the eldest is Sulīman, the second is William Linnæus, and the little girl is called Noshaba Begam.
When I retired to my charpāī, my dreams were haunted by visions of the splendour of the Timoorians in former days; the palace at Agra, and the beautiful Begam with whom I had spent the evening.
23rd.—Mr. Gardner proposed a chītā or cheeta hunt: he had a fine hunting leopard; we went out to look for antelopes; the day was very hot, we had no success, and returned very much fagged; Mrs. B⸺ was laid up in consequence with an ague. There was a fine elephant at Kutchowra, a great number of horses, and a few dogs.
The next morning I spent an hour with the Begam, and took leave of her; it is difficult to find her awake, she sleeps so much from opium. If you call on a native lady, and she does not wish to receive a visitor, the attendants always say, “The lady is asleep,—” equivalent to Not at home. Sometimes she employs herself in needle-work, and her attendants sit around, and net kurtīs for her on a sort of embroidery frame.
It may be as well to remark, that the opium given by the Begam to her children was remarkably fine and pure; grown in her own garden, and collected daily from incisions made in the pod of the deep red poppy.
On my departure, the Begam presented me with a beautifully embroidered batū’ā (a small bag) full of spices; it was highly ornamented, and embroidered in gold and silver, interwoven with coloured beads.
She wished me to put on churees, which are bracelets made of sealing-wax, ornamented with beads; they are extremely pretty, but of little value. I consented, and the churees were put on in this manner: a churee, having been cut open with a hot knife, it was heated over a charcoal fire, opened a little—just enough to allow it to pass over the arm; it was then closed, and the two ends were united by being touched with a hot knife. I wore these churees until they broke and dropped off, in memory of my first visit to the zenāna.