by the Raja himself, who led us up through two rows of chairs laid out exactly as mine had been in the morning.  In front were assembled a party of native comedians, who exhibited a few scenes of the insolence of office in the attendants of great men, and the obtrusive importunity of place-seekers, in a manner that pleased us much more than a dance would have done.  Conversation was kept up very well, and the visit passed off without any feeling of ennui, or anything whatever to recollect with regret.  The ladies looked at us from their apartments through gratings, and without our being able to see them very distinctly.  We were anxious to see the tombs of the late Raja, the elder brother of the present, who lately died, and that of his son, which are in progress in a very fine garden outside the city walls, and, in consequence, we did not sit above half an hour.  The Raja conducted us to the head of the stairs, and the same two officers attended us to the bottom, and mounted their horses, and attended us to the tombs.

After the dust of the town raised by the immense crowd that attended us, and the ceremonies of the day, a walk in this beautiful garden was very agreeable, and I prolonged it till dark.  The Raja had given orders to have all the cisterns filled during our stay, under the impression that we should wish to see the garden; and, as soon as we entered, the jets d’eau poured into the air their little floods from a hundred mouths.  Our old cicerone told us that, if we would take the old capital of Orchha in our way, we might there see the thing in perfection, and amidst the deluges of the rains of Sawan and Bhadon (July and August) see the lightning and hear the thunder.  The Rajas of this, the oldest principality in Bundelkhand, were all formerly buried or burned at the old capital of Orchha, even after they had changed their residence to Tehri.  These tombs over the ashes of the Raja, his wife, and son, are the first that have been built at Tehri, where their posterity are all to repose in future.

Notes: 

1.  December, 1835.

2.  The State of Orchha, also known as Tehri or Tikamgarh, situated to the south of the Jhansi district, is the oldest and the highest in rank of the Bundela principalities.  The town of Tehri is seventy-two miles north-west of Sagar.  The town of Orchha, founded in A.D. 1531, is 131 miles north of Sagar, and about forty miles from Tehri.  Tikamgarh is the fort of Tehri.

3.  A kharita is a letter enclosed in a bag of rich brocade, contained in another of fine muslin.  The mouth is tied with a string of silk, to which hangs suspended the great seal, which is a flat round mass of sealing-wax, with the seal impressed on each side of it.  This is the kind of letter which passes between natives of great rank in India, and between them and the public functionaries of Government. [W.  H. S.]

4. Ante, Chapter 19, after note [15].