well he is now settled. Captain X. bore his disappointment wonderfully well, and has been very amiable in many respects. G. offered him a smaller place, which might just have enabled him to marry, but when he found Z. was going as well as Captain C., he thought we should be having so many strangers at once, just as we were settling in a new place and to a new sort of life, that he would not leave us. I really do not know what we could have done without him at this moment. He is ordering all the new buildings, buying furniture in all directions, and ordering up everything from Calcutta, where he had just provided for our return. Agra produces nothing, there is no shop, and so few Europeans that I suppose the box wallahs find no trade, so we have been obliged to send to Calcutta for mats for the floors, musquito curtains, even common pins.

Tuesday, Dec. 31.

I went early this morning with Mr. H. and

to see the Female Orphan school. We saw the boys last week-there are 150 boys and 130 girls who were picked up at the time of the famine two years ago, starving and with no rela

tions. The boys are learning all sorts of trades; and as we are detained here another year, I thought it would be better to send my two little girls to the other school for the time, if they will let me have them again, to take to Mrs. Wilson. There is a German missionary and his wife at the head of this school. He speaks Hindoostanee tolerably, but she speaks no English and very little Hindoostanee; however, there is another woman to assist, and they seem to make it out very tolerably, and they are an interesting looking young couple, with such soft German voices. Rosina took Ameeum and Jehurun there after breakfast, and stayed great part of the day with them, but they all three did nothing but cry, though the old body is very sensible about them, and thinks it better they should go. Poor little things! I am sorry to lose them; they were such funny little animals, and used to imitate Wright and Rosina in trying to dress me, and really made themselves useful on the march. Z. is taking home a parcel to you, two of my sketch-books, which I want you to keep for me; the others are unluckily on the river on their way to Calcutta. Then, a parcel directed to you, in which there are two half shawls, embroidered

VOL. II.

all over, really about the prettiest things I have seen, which it appeared Wright had procured from Delhi for T. and E. She thought they would be very suitable for two young ladies going out. I thought they were too expensive presents for her to send, and F. and I tried to persuade her out of it, but she said she had got them on purpose, so there they are; and for fear you should be jealous, I have sent you a green worked Delhi scarf. Also, in a little box directed to R., there are two press papiers, a marble tortoise, and a marble book, Agra works, which I send T. and E. F. has sent the girls some rings; so what you are to wring from Z. when he arrives, are two sketch-books, a parcel of shawls, and a little box of rings, all directed to you; these two marble things in the parcel to R.

and

CHAPTER XXIII.

Thursday, Jan. 2, 1840.

I WENT yesterday evening to see my children, who seemed quite reconciled to their fates, and were stuffing rice and curry in large handfuls. Mrs. L., the matron, said they did not take to the other children, but pottered after her wherever she went. Rosina went to bid them good-bye, and was quite satisfied with their

treatment.

We marched fifteen miles this morning over a very heavy road. The mornings are very cold now before the sun rises, but the rest of the day is very fine. They are luckily making a great deal of ice this year. Large fields are covered with very shallow porous saucers, which hold a very little water, and when the thermometer comes down to 36° this turns into very thin ice, and the people collect it and pound it; they reckon that about one-third is available in the hot weather, and it is a great comfort.

Dholepore, Saturday, Jan. 4. The Dholepore Rajah came to fetch G. in this morning. He seems to run to size, in everything; wears eight of the largest pearls ever seen; rides the tallest elephant; his carriage has two stories and is drawn by six elephants, and he lives in a two-storied tent-ricketty, but still nobody else has one so large. He is one of the potentates who undertake to feed all our camp gratis, which is a popular measure with the sepoys and servants. Scindia, the Gwalior Rajah, is encamped on the other side of the river, about five miles off, and G. reckons that he will have about two durbars a day for the next fortnight. He had two to-day-one for Dholepore himself, and another for Scindia's Vakeel. The Mahrattas are a very ragamuffin-looking race. E. is the Gwalior resident, and is on the same fat scale with everything else, except little Violet Snook, who is trotting about the street very busily. It is rather curious that the camp should contain three officers rejoicing in the names of Violet Snook, Gandy Gaitskell, and Orlando Stubbs. Are they common names in England? Gandy Gaitskell we are uncommonly intimate with; he is always