A little after midday the Raja and his brother came to pay us a visit; and about four o’clock I went to return it, accompanied by Lieutenant Thomas.  As usual, he had a nautch (dance) upon carpets, spread upon the sward under awnings in front of the pavilion in which we were received.  While the women were dancing and singing, a very fine panther was brought in to be shown to us.  He had been caught, full-grown, two years before, and, in the hands of a skilful man, was fit for the chase in six months.  It was a very beautiful animal, but, for the sake of the sport, kept wretchedly thin.[5] He seemed especially indifferent to the crowd and the music, but could not bear to see the woman whirling about in the dance with her red mantle floating in the breeze; and, whenever his head was turned towards her, he cropped his ears.  She at last, in play, swept close by him, and with open mouth he attempted to spring upon her, but was pulled back by the keeper.  She gave a shriek, and nearly fell upon her back in fright.

The Raja is a man of no parts or character, and, his expenditure being beyond his income, he is killing his goose for the sake of her eggs—­that is, he is ruining all the farmers and cultivators of his large estate by exactions, and thereby throwing immense tracts of fine land out of tillage.  He was the heir to the fortress and territory of Garha Kota, near Sagar, which was taken by Sindhia’s army, under the command of Jean Baptiste Filose,[6] just before our conquest in 1817.  I was then with my regiment, which was commanded by Colonel, afterwards Major-General, G------,[7] a very singular character.  When our surgeon.  Dr. E------, received the newspaper announcing the capture of Garha Kota in Central India by Jean-Baptiste, an officer of the corps was with him, who called on the colonel on his way home, and mentioned this as a bit of news.  As soon as this officer had left him, the colonel wrote off a note to the doctor:  ’My dear Doctor,—­I understand that that fellow, John the Baptist, has got into Sindhia’s service, and now commands an army—­ do send me the newspapers.’  These were certainly the words of his note, and, at the only time I heard him speak on the subject of religion he discomfited his adversary in an argument at the mess by ’Why, sir, you do not suppose that I believe in those fellows, Luther, Calvin, and John the Baptist, do you?’

Nothing could stand this argument.  All the party burst into a laugh, which the old gentleman took for an unequivocal recognition of his victory, and his adversary was silenced.  He was an old man when I first became acquainted with him.  I put into his hands, when in camp, Miss Edgeworth’s novels, in the hope of being able to induce him to read by degrees; and I have frequently seen the tears stealing down over his furrowed cheeks, as he sat pondering over her pages in the corner of his tent.  A braver soldier never lived than old G------; and he distinguished