.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_The carnival at Indore--Extraordinary scene in the palace of the
Holkar--A night at the caves of Ajunta--The caves of Ellora and fortress
of Doulatabad--The merits of a palkee--Reflections on the journey from
Agra to Bombay--Adieu to India_.

After a few days' more travelling over the hot dry plains of Malwa we
reached its capital, Indore, where we spent some days at the hospitable
mansion of the Resident, and paid a visit to the Rajah, whose palace is
situated in the centre of that large and populous town. During our visit
a most extraordinary scene occurred. It happened that a sort of carnival
was going on; but the bonbons and bouquets of Italy are here represented
by little balls containing red, purple, or yellow dust, which burst the
moment they strike the object at which they are thrown, and very soon
after the _row_ commences two-thirds of the population are so covered
with red dust that they present the most extraordinary appearance; but it
is not the dust-balls which contribute so much to the dyeing of the
population as the squirts full of similar coloured liquids, which are to
be seen playing in every direction. Woe to the luckless individual who
incautiously exhibits himself in the streets of Indore during the
"Hoolie;" not that we ran any risk upon the occasion of our visit to the
Rajah, as we were on that account tabooed, and could laugh at our ease at
the rest of the claret-coloured world. Here a woman passed spotted like
a coach-dog: she had just come in for a spent discharge, and had escaped
the deluge, which her puce-coloured little boy had received so fully that
his whole face and person seemed to partake of the prevailing tint; while
yonder old greybeard is dusting his moustache from the red powder which
tinges it in strong contrast to the rest of his sallow countenance.

After going through the ceremony of squatting on the floor of the
Durbar--our seven pair of unruly legs all converging to a common centre,
from our inability to double them under us, as his Majesty did--we
adjourned to the hall below to witness the "Hoolie" in safety. On each
side of the court-yard was a sort of garden-engine, one filled with a
purple and the other with a light-red fluid. The King's body-guard were
now marched in and divided into two parties, each sitting under one of
the garden-engines. At the main gateway of the court-yard stood two
elephants, with tubs of coloured liquid before