there is a great attempt making to educate him thoroughly; but his grandmother and mother are very jealous of him, and of each other, and contrive to keep him in the zenana most part of the day, where no education can reach him. It has been a great point to get him to Calcutta, but his mother has come too, carefully concealed in her palanquin, and the grandmother is furious. He is by right the King of Bengal, and consequently of all of us, and is the only native whose visit George returns here. He went to see him this afternoon, and, as all the gentlemen went, F and I went boldly out riding by ourselves; just the sort of thing which astonishes the Calcuttites; but we told Brown, the coachman, to ride carelessly and like a stranger within reach, and mentioned to the guards that we had rather they should not ride over us if we were kicked off. The course is so crowded, and the Indian horses so vicious, and the natives such bad coachmen, that there is never a day without some accident, but it did not fall on us to-day.
