I should mention an incident that occurred during the Raja’s visit to me at Tehri.  Lieutenant Thomas was sitting next to the little Sarimant, and during the interview he asked him to allow him to look at his beautiful little gold-hilted sword.  The Sarimant held it fast, and told him that he should do himself the honour of waiting upon him in his tent in the course of the day, when he would show him the sword and tell him its history.  After the Raja, left me, Thomas mentioned this, and said he felt very much hurt at the incivility of my little friend; but I told him that he was in everything he did and said so perfectly the gentleman, that I felt quite sure he would explain all to his satisfaction when he called upon him.  During his visit to Thomas he apologized for not having given over his sword to him, and said, ’You European gentlemen have such perfect confidence in each other, that you can, at all times, and in all situations, venture to gratify your curiosity in these matters, and draw your swords in a crowd just as well as when alone; but, had you drawn mine from the scabbard in such a situation, with the tent full of the Raja’s personal attendants, and surrounded by a devoted and not very orderly soldiery, it might have been attended by very serious consequences.  Any man outside might have seen the blade gloaming, and, not observing distinctly why it had been drawn, might have suspected treachery, and called out “To the rescue”, when we should all have been cut down—­the lady, child, and all.’  Thomas was not only satisfied with the Sarimant’s apology, but was so much delighted with him, that he has ever since been longing to get his portrait; for he says it was really his intention to draw the sword had the Sarimant given it to him.  As I have said, his face is extremely beautiful, quite a model for a painter or a statuary, and his figure, though small, is handsome.  He dresses with great elegance, mostly in azure-coloured satin, surmounted by a rose-coloured turban and a waistband of the same colour.  All his motions are graceful, and his manners have an exquisite polish.  A greater master of all the convenances I have never seen, though he is of slender capacity, and, as I have said, in stature less than five feet high.

A poor, half-naked man, reduced to beggary by the late famine, ran along by my horse to show me the road, and, to the great amusement of my attendants, exclaimed that he felt exactly as if he were always falling down a well, meaning as if he were immersed in cold water.  He said that the cold season was suited only to gentlemen who could afford to be well clothed; but, to a poor man like himself, and the great mass of people, in Bundelkhand at least, the hot season was much better.  He told me that ’the late Raja, though a harsh, was thought to be a just man;[26] and that his good sense, and, above all, his good fortune (ikbal) had preserved the principality entire; but that God only, and the forbearance of the Honourable Company, could now serve it under such an imbecile as the present chief’.  He seemed quite melancholy at the thought of living to see this principality, the oldest in Bundelkhand, lose its independence.  Even this poor, unclothed, and starving wretch had a feeling of patriotism, a pride of country, though that country had been so wretchedly governed, and was now desolated by a famine.