At His Departure, He Gave
Him A Coach, Made In Imitation Of That Sent By The King My Master To The
Emperor, And Commanded The English Coachman To Drive The Prince To The
Tents.
Churrum went accordingly into the coach, sitting in the middle
thereof, all the sides being open; and was attended
By all his chief
nobles a-foot, all the way to the camp, which was about four miles.
Being followed by a vast concourse of people, he scattered all the way
among them handfuls of quarter rupees. At one time he reached his hand
to the coachman, and put about 100 rupees into his hat.
On the 2d, the king removed, with his women and all the court, to the
tents, about three miles from town. I went that morning to attend upon
him at the Jarruco window of the palace, and went up to the scaffold
under the window, being desirous to see this exhibition. Two eunuchs
stood upon tressels, having long poles headed with feathers, with which
they fanned him. On this occasion, he dispensed many favours, and
received many presents. What he gave was let down by a silk cord, rolled
on a turning instrument; and what he received was drawn up in the same
manner, by a venerable, fat, and deformed old matron, all hung round
with gymbals like an image. Two of his principal wives were at a
window on one side, whose curiosity led them to break holes in a lattice
of roods that hung before the window, to gaze on me. At first I only saw
their fingers; and afterwards, applying their faces to the holes, I
could at times see an eye, and at length could discern their entire
countenances. They were indifferently fair, having their black hair
smoothed up from their foreheads; and they were so adorned with pearls
and diamonds, that I might have seen them without the help of any other
light. On my looking at them, they retired very merry, and, as I
supposed, laughing at me.
After some time, the king departed from the window, and we all went to
the durbar, to wait his coming out of the inner apartments. He came not
long after, and remained in the durbar for about half an hour, till his
ladies had mounted their elephants, which were in all about fifty, all
richly caparisoned, especially three, which had turrets or howders of
gold, with grates of gold wire for the ladies to see through, and rich
canopies over head of cloth of silver. The king then descended the
stairs, amid such acclamations of health to the king, as would have
drowned the noise of cannon. At the foot of the stairs, where I
contrived to be near him, a person brought to him a large carp, and
another presented a dish of some white stuff like starch, into which the
king dipped his finger, with which he touched the fish, and then rubbed
it on his forehead.
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