lazy switch of tail or wave of trunk indicated the languid
feeling of pleasure and contentment enjoyed by the bathers. Their
keepers, helped by a small boy who clambered up their steep sides,
assisted the cleansing process by scrubbing them vigorously with a
sort of stable-broom. As soon as one side was thoroughly cleaned the
boy jumped off, and at the word of command, with a tremendous
upheaval, and amid a great displacement of water, the huge beast
flopped down again on its cleansed side, uttering a prodigious grunt
of satisfaction, and quite ready for the same process to be repeated.
Such a splashing was never seen; especially when, as chanced to be the
case whilst we were driving past, fifteen elephants were taking their
baths at the same time. I felt quite afraid that one little baby
elephant, who had timidly followed its mother, would be overwhelmed
and drowned by the wallowing and flounderings of the older animals.

_Saturday, February 12th._--Our early expeditions of the last two
mornings have been so tiring, that I determined to remain quietly at
home to-day until it was time to go to breakfast with the Nizam at
eleven o'clock. At half-past ten his Highness's beautiful coaches came
for us; and--Mr. Cordery and I leading the way--we drove through the
Chowk, one of the broadest streets of the city, to the palace. This is
reached through the stables; and the horses, evidently waiting
inspection, were standing with their heads out of the doors of their
boxes; their grooms, in yellow tunics, blue trousers, and red
waist-bands much trimmed with silver, being stationed at the animals'
heads. At one corner of the quadrangle in which the stables are built
is a passage leading to a second and larger square, crowded by numbers
of the Nizam's retainers. We passed through this to a third courtyard
(said to cover as much ground as Lincoln's Inn Fields), and there
alighted, at the bottom of a fine flight of marble steps, overlooking
a charming garden with the usual tank in the centre. The effect was,
however, rather spoilt to European eyes by a very ill-cast bronze
figure, holding in its hand a large coloured air-ball, such as are
sold in the streets of London for a penny each. The Nizam (now about
twenty-one years of age) is so delighted with these balls that he has
ordered two hundred of them, so that when one explodes it may be
replaced immediately.

From the entrance-hall, marble corridors, from which hung handsome
glas