THE TOMB OF COLONEL HESSING.
15th.—This beautiful Mausoleum is in the Catholic burial ground at Agra, and is well worthy a visit. It was built by a native architect, by name Luteef, in imitation of the ancient Muhammadan tombs. The material is the red stone from Fathīpoor Sicri, which is highly carved, but not inlaid. The tomb is beautiful, very beautiful, and in excellent taste. Its cost is estimated at about one lākh of rupees. Luteef’s drawings of the Tāj and of all the ancient monuments around Agra are excellent; they cost from three to forty rupees each. I bought a large collection of them, as well as of marbles and other curiosities. Luteef inlays marble with precious stones, after the style of the work in the Tāj. A chess-table of this sort, with a border of flowers in mosaic, costs from eight to twelve hundred rupees, £80, or £120, and is beautifully executed.
16th.—My affairs at Agra having come to a conclusion, and the pinnace, carriage, and horses being on their way home, I once more turned my steps to Khāsgunge, and arrived there dāk, accompanied by a friend, who was extremely anxious to see the marriage ceremony, although all that the eye of a man is permitted to behold is the tamāshā that takes place without the four walls. All that passes within is sacred.
On my arrival the whole party at Khāsgunge were going out to tents by the Ganges to hunt wild boars and otters; to shoot crocodiles, floriken, black partridge, and other game. Even for people in good health it was, at that season of the year, a mad expedition, and I declined going; I longed indeed to accompany them, but my cold and cough were so severe I was forced to give up the idea.
18th.—My dear Colonel Gardner, seeing how ill I was, said, “You will never recover, my child, in the outer house; I will give you a room in the inner one, and put you under the care of the begam; there you will soon recover.” He took me over to the zenāna; the begam received me very kindly, and appointed four of her slaves to attend upon me, and aid my own women. They put me immediately into a steam-bath, shampooed, mulled, and half-boiled me; cracked every joint after the most approved fashion, took me out, laid me on a golden-footed bed, gave me sherbet to drink, shampooed me to sleep, and by the time the shooting party returned from the Gunga, I had perfectly recovered, and was able to enter into all the amusement of seeing a Hindostanee wedding.
I must here anticipate, and remark that Suddu Khan, our excellent little khānsāmān, died in June, 1841. He had been ill and unable to attend for months. There is a story, that being in an hummām, he received some injury in the spine while being shampooed and joint-cracked by a barber, who placed his knee to his back, and then forcibly brought his two arms backwards. The story says poor Suddu fainted, and the barber was so much alarmed, he fled, and has never been seen since at Cawnpore, where the scene took place.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE MARRIAGE.
“TO DRESS ONE’S OWN DOLL[144].”
Spoken of a father who defrays the whole expense of his daughter’s marriage, her dress, ornaments, &c., without any charge to the bridegroom or his family.