something, a hundred yards or more from the place. We could not suppose
that they were picking up stones.

In the course of this day we received a communication to admit into camp
a native from the fort, with his attendants, six in number. "Halloa,"
said one, "what! they have had a sickener, have they?"--"They have had
enough on't," said another. A soldier standing near me bellowed out,
"Arrah, Corporal Freeman, dear, sure the enemy have got the Corporal
Forbes" (meaning the cholera morbus), "for the rajah is coming to take
_ta_ with Sir David Maloney." This was what our men had christened him,
I suppose to make his name shorter. Various were the reports in
circulation, and every one had his own opinion. Here again the glass of
the noble captain, of whom I have already made honourable mention, was
constantly at his eye, looking for this messenger of peace. Sometimes he
saw him on horseback; then in his palanquin, attended by one hundred
followers. "If he was the commander-in-chief, he would not permit one of
them to come within a mile of the camp, armed." One time he saw the
rajah riding on a milk-white steed on the hill; but this procession,
unfortunately, proved to be no other than little white clouds riding in
the sky. Ten thousand were the methods and styles in which this
messenger was to make his appearance, and not one was right, for he
arrived carried in something like a sailor's hammock, with one follower.
He was a dirty, ill-looking, thick-set fellow, with small eyes, wide
face, and a low forehead. In spite of these disadvantages of person,
however, he assumed all the consequence of a nabob; but when we
commenced examining his hammock and person, to see that he had no hidden
weapon, his ambassadorship was highly offended, and protested that, to
use his own words, "He would not permit his holy person (for he was a
priest) to be polluted or defiled by the contaminating touch of a
Christian." He added, "that he was a high-priest, and that, rather than
submit to such debasement, he would return to his rajah, and inform him
of the prodigious indign scrutiny of his holy person." He was soon
informed, that if he did not submit to the required forms and rules of
the East, he of course might return to his master, and tell him what he
pleased. He was getting into his hammock for this purpose, when his
holiness thought better of it, and said, "Well, you may examine." While
I searched his ponderous cumerbund (a long cloth