The King’s countenance, dignified by age, possesses traces of extreme beauty; he is much fairer than Asiatics usually are; his features are still fine, his hair silvery white; intelligence beams upon his brow, his conversation gentle and refined, and his condescending manners hardly to be surpassed by the most refined gentleman of Europe.  I am told by those who have been long intimate with his habits in private, that he leads a life of strict piety and temperance, equal to that of a durweish[3] of his faith, whom he imitates in expending his income on others without indulging in a single luxury himself.

The Queen’s manners are very amiable and condescending; she is reported to be as highly gifted with intellectual endowments as I can affirm she is with genuine politeness.

I was induced to visit the mukhburrah of the great-great-grandfather of the present King of Oude,[4] who, at his death,—­which occurred at Delhi, I believe,—­was one of the Soobadhaars[5] of the sovereign ruler of India.  This nobleman, in his time, had been a staunch adherent to the descendants of Timoor, and had been rewarded for his fidelity by public honours and the private friendship of the King.  The monument erected over his remains, is in a costly style of magnificence, and in the best possible condition, standing in the centre of a flower-garden which is enclosed by a stone wall, with a grand gateway of good architecture.  The mukhburrah is spacious, and in the usual Mussulmaun style of building mausoleums; viz., a square, with a dome, and is ascended by a flight of broad steps.  This building stands about three miles from the city, in a good situation to be seen from the road.  I was told that the family of Oude kept readers of the Khoraun in constant attendance at the mukhburrah; and I observed several soldiers, whose duty it was to guard the sacred spot, at the expense of the Oude government.

In explanation of the word Soobadhaar, it may not be uninteresting to remark in this place, that when the government of Hindoostaun flourished under the descendants of Timoor, Soobadhaars were appointed over districts, whose duty, in some respects, bore resemblance to that of a Governor; with this difference, that the soobadhaaries were gifts, not only for the life of the individuals, but to their posterity for ever, under certain restrictions and stipulations which made them tributary to, and retained them as dependants of, the reigning sovereign:—­as for instance, a certain annual amount was to be punctually transferred to the treasury at Delhi; the province to be governed by the same laws, and the subjects to be under the same control in each Soobadhaarie as those of the parent sovereignty; the revenue exacted in the very same way,; each Soobadhaar was bound to retain in his employ a given number of soldiers, horse and foot, fully equipped for the field, with perfect liberty to employ them as occasion served in the territory which he governed, whether against refractory subjects, or encroachments from neighbouring provinces; but in any emergency from the Court at Delhi, the forces to be, at all times, in readiness for the Sultaun’s service at a moment’s notice.