Dacoitie in Gôdwár-Shere Khan Káim-Kháni-Concerning Delhi -Death of Major Sykes-Plunder of a marriage procession - Personal-Dacoits as free-lances-Kyum Singh Rhátore- The proposed Indian License Act-A gang of Dacoits intercepted -Dacoit life incidents-Propitiation of manes-Kutha recitals (and footnote on the subject p. 437)-They serve as a device -Treasure carriers plundered under that stratagem-And Cochineal insects-Highland reel-Remarkable act of plunder and recovery-The Emperor Hoomayoon's tomb at Old Delhi -The City of the Dead-The tomb of the lovely Princess Jehanára-Marginal note as to the chronogram of the date of her death-The saint Shah Selim Cheesti— (The error in as- cribing to the princess her conversion to Christianity)—Well divers at Delhi-A treasure Dacoitie at Dholêra near Ahmed- ábád-At a concert-A disagreeable inquiry-Dacoitie in Bengal-One in Tirhoot (Dősádhs, Gwálas, and Keechuks alias Budhucks-The late Sir William Sleeman's report on the AT THE DURBAR. (CLOSE OF 1886.) I WOULD introduce my Journal for 1867 with a retrospect of some of the events towards the close of the preceding year as leading up to the general narrative of the diaried period. I attended, in November, 1866, the Durbar held at Agra by the Governor-General of India. Queenly Agra-that noble creation of the great Moghul Sovereign from whom it derived its better name of Akhbar-a-bad-where the beautiful Táj, lapped by the silvery Jumna, reveals, fairy-like, from the opposite bank, her ethereal loveliness; and the majestic battlements of its renowned citadel, defended by enormous double ramparts of agatelike redstone, and faultless oriels of perforated white marble laved on the river face by the same stream-the royal palace, noble halls of state, and most perfect cupolas uprising from their midststand resplendently forth, contrasting with the dull, unrelieved aspect of modern fortresses and of "The Emperor Akhbar founded here a most magnificent city." (Abool Fázil.) VOL. I. B modern architecture, and, like its neighbouring Táj, "far o'erpassing old, and mocking modern skill." Yet scarcely more magnificent the pomp and splendour of the royal receptions there similarly held by that famed monarch and his immediate successors, than the glow and glitter, the state and courtly ceremony, which attended the same gorgeous, though less tumultuous pageant on the present occasion, even in these more staid times, however Cromwellian our Viceroy and individually opposed to such costly displays. For here at the same Imperial city, recalling the great traditions and the proud and pleasant memories of the grandeur and the mightiness of their own monarchs, gathered to do homage through the person of her august Pro-consul to the Majesty of the British Queen who now swayed sovereignty over them, were princes of remote lineage and high-born ancestral descent; chieftains and rulers exercising independent domination over vast domains and martial races; palatines and powerful barons; kings, lords, and lordlings; high ministers of state and lordly nobles-the representatives of the powers and principalities of old time and past rule -now owning and come openly to avow allegiance, whatever any mental reservation, to that distant foreign nation whom ten years previously they, mostly, had thought to depose, and, as some suppose, had nearly done so-and might have, but that "little England rose and stretched her hands" "For there were gathered round the white Queen's throne All loyal hearts of England's chivalry, Our soldiers speeding from her sea-girt shores.2 Their hearts' true homage on her loyal love." Grandly encamped after the manner of native potentates, at various distances in the open country in the vicinage of the great plain where were pitched the Viceregal tents standing importantly out afront of the camps of the numerous regiments of European and Native Infantry and Cavalry and batteries of European Artillery that safeguarded them, and variously attended each by his own retinue of gaudily-appareled followers and banner-bearing spearmen, horse and foot, these several chiefs imposingly posited aloft on splendidly draped elephants, or astride, bravely clad, on prancing steed as richly caparisoned, or seated half-recumbent and cross-legged as their manner is, in sumptuous sedan, came in a succession of 3 2 "Our sires who caught the spirit of the sea " would have been the correct third line in this quotation from Mr. Rennell Rodd's fine epic on "Raleigh," learnt by heart by some of us here at home, and I would beg that talented gentleman's pardon for substituting it in this place with one more suited to the invoked occasion. May we not expect from that early gifted author a similar poem on the "Indian Mutiny," a great subject not yet handled in verse? But in suggesting this, I am not unmindful of the spirited prize poem on "Lucknow," by Mr. Anthony S. Aglen, or of the "battle revelry " of its contents. 3 Sedans of state, borne aloft on the shoulders of gorgeously clothed bearers, are called peenus, the equivalent of our word pinnace. I don't know how or why, except for contrast sake, but so it is, that the term is applied alike to a boat and a palankeen; as, may be, a camel also is to a ship, and a cab likened to a gondola! In respect to a camel, indeed, it is curious that the Hindustani word jaház, which ordinarily means a boat or a ship, should also signify the tree of a camel saddle! 1 |