Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/136

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LETTERS FROM INDIA.

entrance was to be a crisis. However, his first step was to send to —— and Mr. ——, who is with him, that he meant to visit them in their tents, which astonished all his own adherents. He turned out particularly pleasant, and, —— says, ‘contrives, in the most gentlemanlike way, to transfer to his father all the attention paid to himself;’ for the chiefs are apt to forget the Kurruck at his own durbar and hustle him about more than is respectful. In the meantime it is supposed that he means to displace Dhian Singh, the prime minister, and let his father keep the throne while he governs in his name.

The old fakeer the other day observed confidently that even if Noor Mahal were to shut up the ‘ocean of sense and talent,’ he would be just as happy as if he were at large. I don’t think you can get down more just now, or I would tell you about little Pertâb and Shere Singh; but I think it right to keep up your Punjâb history to a certain degree.

I am tired of calling upon you for sympathy about my pets, and if ever I have any more I sha’n’t tell you about them; but Mattie sickened in real earnest last week, and, though the only two doctors the hills possess attended her, and though her strength was kept up for six days