satisfied, his dark countenance cleared up, and he said that the introduction of their friend the Resident was quite enough for them, and that the King hoped to make Lucknow not unpleasant to me. The remaining conversation was about the cities and countries which I had visited, how I liked the first sight of Lucknow, and concluded with the minister's inviting me, on the part of the King, to breakfast with him the Monday following.

This is the usual way of being presented at this court, and the reason given for not naming an earlier day, was, that the King had a bad feverish cold. I found, indeed, half Lucknow laid up with the same influenza, though of a slighter degree, with that which had prevailed so universally in Calcutta during the rains. In fact, I know not how, the sight of the town, its various villanous smells, and its close population, gave me the idea of a very unhealthy place, though I found the old residents disclaimed the imputation. I felt much chagrined, on more accounts than one, to find that Mr. Ricketts's marriage could not take place before the 1st of November; if this were out of the question, however, it was very unlikely I should be able to leave it before that time, from the different things that were to be done. Under these circumstances it was a satisfaction to me to find that, if a week's notice was given, I should be sure of a numerous attendance at sacrament, that many persons had been asking about confirmation, who only needed some days to prepare themselves, and make up their minds to the ceremony, and that a full share of those other opportunities of usefulness might be expected which I had found at Allahabad, Monghyr, and other places where there was, as here, no resident chaplain.

The great detentions which I have already met with have not only thrown me much behind the reckoning which I formed from my conversation with Colonel Cunliffe, but, joined to the experience which I have already had of marching, have obliged me to calculate on a much slower progress hereafter than I looked forward to when first that reckoning was made. In so long a journey as this I find it evident that a Sunday halt is not only adviseable in a religious point of view, but necessary for the animals and men who accompany me. To be useful I must arrange my stay in each station so as to include a Sunday, and shall thus be often kept, besides these halting days, several others, which I

ledgments for the flattering and cordial reception given by your Majesty to the head of the British Church in India, of which the Bishop writes in the warmest and most grateful terms.

320

LUCKNOW.

should have employed, more to my liking, in pressing onwards towards the meeting to which I look forward with daily increasing earnestness. To go dâk any considerable part of the way would be a great additional expense, and, it so happens, that it would save me very little time, since I must still adjust my stay in the different stations according to Sundays, and wait for my servants and baggage to rejoin me. As, to the best of my calculation, it seems very improbable that I can reach Surat before the beginning of April, I was well pleased to learn from Mr. Hyde, one of the party at the Residency, who had recently come across from Bombay, that travelling in Guzerât was not only practicable but pleasant till that time. Mr. Hyde is a great traveller, and the only Englishman whom I have heard of, except Lord Valencia, All who has visited India from motives, exclusively, of science and curiosity, since the country has been in our possession. others, however science might engross their attention, have, like Leyden and Sir W. Jones, had some official and ostensible object, whereas this gentleman is merely making a tour. He left England seven years ago, with the intention of being absent a few months, and has been since rambling on, without plan, and chiefly as his course has been determined by the motions of others. Having attached himself to Mr. Bankes, I believe in Spain, he accompanied him into Egypt, Nubia, Syria, and Arabia. Mr. Rich enticed him from Palmyra on to Babylon and Bagdad. From Bussorah he came to Bombay, touching in his way at some of the ports of Oman and Yeman, in the hope of finding an eligible opportunity of returning home by sea; and then, finding himself in a new and interesting country, determined to make the tour of India. Added to his zeal for seeing new countries, he has an uncommon share of good-nature and cheerfulness, and is exactly the person whom I could conceive Bankes selecting as his travelling companion.

I do not know that there is any use in writing a regular journal of the manner in which I passed my time at Lucknow. There was, as must be the case, a good deal of sameness, in morning rides, evening sight-seeing, late breakfasts, and later dinners. There were several pleasant people among the crowd, and I was daily more and more pleased with my host and future hostess, and from him I obtained much information as to the manners and customs of northern India. The king very good-naturedly sent an elephant every morning for Mr. Lushington and myself, and a chariot for the Corries, that we might see the sights of Lucknow to more advantage. There is a menagerie with a greater number of scarce and curious animals, but in far worse order, than that at Barrackpoor; and on the other side of the river Goomty, in a well-wooded park, is a large collection of

different varieties of cows, camels, and deer, and five or six very large rhinoceroses, the first animals of the kind I ever saw, and of which I found that prints and drawings had given me a very imperfect conception. They are more bulky animals, and of a darker colour, than I had supposed, and the thickness of the folds of their impenetrable skin much surpasses all which I had expected. These at Lucknow are gentle and quiet animals, except that one of them has a feud with horses. They seem to propagate in captivity without reluctance, and I should conceive might be available to carry burthens as well as the elephant, except that, as their pace is still slower than his, their use could only be applicable to very great weights, and very gentle travelling. These have sometimes had howdahs on them, and were once fastened in a carriage, but only as an experiment, which was never followed up. There is, on the same side of the river, a poultry-yard of beautiful pigeons; and on the river itself is a steam-boat, a vessel fitted up like a brig of war, and other things which show the King to be fond of mechanical inventions. He has, indeed, a very skilful mechanist, an English officer, in his service, and is himself said to know more of the science, and of the different branches of philosophy connected with it, than could be expected in a person who understands no European language.

Another pleasant ride is to "Dil-koushar," Heart's Delight, a small summer palace of the King's, about three miles from the city. The house is small and ugly, with a high front like a grenadier's cap, and two low wings, like some of the old French and German chateaus. It is said to be prettily arranged and furnished inside, but this I did not see.

The park is extensive, and some parts of it extremely pretty, being sufficiently wild and jungly to offer a picturesque variety, and in parts sufficiently open for air and exercise, as well as to show off its deer and neelghaus to advantage. Some parts of it put me in mind of the few remaining glades of Needwood forest. There are not only neelghaus and the common Indian deer, but some noble red deer in this park, which contribute much, with a broad and excellent drive through it, and the form of its lodge, to give it an English air, which, however, is from time to time destroyed by the tall jungle grass, with its beautiful silver tufts, and the monkeys. These, as well as all which I have yet seen in this country, resemble the corpulent one which I described on the banks of the Pudda in every particular, except that of wanting a tail, which he, I suppose, had lost by some accident. Though they seem better adapted for climbing than running, they are tolerably swift on the ground. I have more than once taken them at first for Pariar dogs. They are very tame, never being VOL. I.-41

shot at or injured, and are not, I think, the lively, frolicsome animal which they are in Europe supposed to be. There is a sort of cage in the middle of the park where they are fed, at least where some gram is thrown to them to scramble for once in two or three days, whether founded by the King or some pious Hindoo I know not. I suspect the latter, because the people who keep it are Fakirs and beg, and because there is a statue of Hunimân in front of it.

Another popular drive is to Constantia, a very large and most whimsical house and grounds, in the worst possible taste, but displaying, in its outline and some parts of its arrangements, an eccentric and uneducated genius, built by the late General Martin, a Frenchman, and originally a common soldier, who rose by good fortune more than any brilliant services, to the first rank in the Company's army. His tomb is in one of the cellars, a marble altar-shaped sarcophagus, with a very modest inscription, and a bust also of white marble. It is surrounded by four figures of grenadiers as large as life, with their arms reversed, in the elegant. attitude used in military funerals, and the whole would have had an extremely good effect, had not the grenadiers which, it is said, Martin meant to have been of marble also, been paltry plaster figures, painted after nature in red coats! Whose taste this has been I could not learn.*

There are one or two other very English-looking country. houses near Lucknow, all, I believe, the property of the King, and it may be said that from the Residency all the way down the principal street, and afterward through the park of Dil-Koushar, and the neighbouring drives, Lucknow has more resemblance to some of the smaller European capitals (Dresden for instance) than any thing which I have seen in India. The King's troops, besides the irregular gentry of whom I saw a specimen on entering the city, are dressed in the same way that the British sepoys used to be twenty years ago, and as they are represented in Kerr Porter's "Storming of Seringapatam." They are armed with muskets and bayonets, under British officers, and not ill disciplined, but their numbers are not more than are required for the usual purposes of parade and mounting sentries. His horseguards are fine tall men, and well mounted, but are in discipline and military appearance a little, and but a little, better than those which attend the Nawab of Dacca. The British subsidiary force, which is at the disposal of the Resident, is, by a strange choice, placed in a cantonment five miles from the town, separated by

*All the furniture of the house was sold on General Martin's death, and the looking-glasses and lustres were purchased by the Company to ornament the Government-house in Calcutta.-ED.

the broad and rapid stream of the Goomty, where there is indeed a fine old bridge, but one which might in a few minutes be rendered impassable by any force without a regular siege, so that in case of a commotion in the city, either King or Resident would have to rely entirely on the single company which is always on guard at the Residency, but which would be as nothing when opposed to such an armed population as that of Lucknow. That they have never yet been exposed to this danger seems a sufficient proof of the quiet disposition of the people, as well as of the opinion which they entertain of the supposed stability of the Company's empire; yet the English, both at Lucknow and Cawnpoor, often spoke of the anarchical condition, the frequent affrays, the hatred of the European and Christian name, the robberies and murders by which this city is distinguished; and I was cautioned expressly, by more people than one, never to go into the populous parts of the city except on an elephant, and attended by some of the Resident's or the King's chuprassees. It so happened that the morning before this counsel was given, Mr. Lushington and I had gone on horseback through almost the whole place, along streets and alleys as narrow and far dirtier than those of Benares, and in a labyrinth of buildings which obliged us to ask our way at almost every turn. So far from having chuprassees, we had as it happened but one saees between us, and he as much a stranger as ourselves, yet we found invariable civility and good nature, people backing their carts and elephants to make room for us, and displaying on the whole a far greater spirit of hospitality and accommodation than two foreigners would have met with in London. One old man only, when my horse showed considerable reluctance to pass an elephant, said, shaking his head, in a sort of expostulating tone, "this is not a good road for sahibs." Some of the instances, indeed, which were related of Europeans being insulted and assaulted in the streets and neighbourhood of Lucknow, were clearly traced to insolent or overbearing conduct on the part of the complainants themselves; and though of course there are bad and worthless people every where, though where every body is armed, and there is no efficient police, street brawls will be less infrequent than in cities more fortunately circumstanced, and though by night narrow streets ill-watched and unlighted must be dangerous, I am not disposed to think that the people of Oude are habitually ferocious or blood-thirsty, or that they are influenced by any peculiar animosity against the English or the Christian name. It is certain, however, that they have not a good character, and that in no part of the country should valuable property be trusted in their way without proper precaution. I had heard of some travellers having been menaced by the villagers on the Oude bank