ice, as well as policy of this measure, was, however, strongly
canvassed, and gave rise to repeated and violent debates in the
Court of Proprietors.

[2] The native servants of the Governor-General at Calcutta, on
state occasions, wear splendid scarlet and gold caftans.--_See_
Bishop Heber's Journal.

[3] The Khan nowhere exactly explains the surprise which he
expresses, here and at other times, at the shouts of
_hurra_!--perhaps his ear was wounded by the resemblance of the
sound to certain Hindustani epithets, by no means refined or
complimentary.

This fancied metamorphosis of the sturdy beef-eaters with their partisans,
whose costume has never been altered since the days of Henry VII., into
Hindustani _peons_ and _chuprassees_, seems to show that the enthusiasm of
the Khan must have been considerably excited--and after this cruel
disappointment he dismisses the remainder of the procession in a few words.
To a native of India, indeed, accustomed to see every petty rajah or nawab
holding a few square miles of territory as the tenant of the Company,
surrounded on state occasions by a crowd of the picturesque irregular
cavalry of the East, and with a _Suwarree_ or cavalcade of led horses,
gayly caparisoned elephants, flaunting banners, and martial music, the
amount of military display in attendance on the Queen of Great Britain
must naturally have appeared inconsiderable--"The escort consisted of only
some two hundred horsemen, but these were cased in steel and leather from
head to foot, and their black horses were by far the finest I have yet
seen in this country. But though the multitudes of people were immense,
yet the procession tell much short of what I had expected from the monarch
of so great and powerful a nation! I returned home, however, much
gratified by the sights I had seen to-day."

The sight of this ceremony naturally leads to a digression on the origin
and constitution of the English parliament, and its division into the two
houses of Lords and Commons. The events leading to these institutions, and
the antecedent civil wars between the king and the barons, in the reign of
Henry III. and Edward I., are given by the Khan, on the whole, with great
accuracy--probably from the information of his English friends since the
knowledge of the ancient history and institutions of the country, which he
displays both here and in other parts of his narrative, can scarcely have