them. At a given signal
the gallant troops were exposed to a most murderous cross-fire, which
they were not allowed to return: both garden-engines began playing upon
them furiously, and the elephants, filling their trunks, sent the
contents far and wide over the victims, who crouched down and bore in
patience the blood-red storm. At the same moment that a
dexterously-applied squirt whisked off some individual's turban, a
fountain from the other side playing into his eyes and mouth prevented
him from recovering it until some more fortunate neighbour, suffering
perhaps from ear-ache, received the claret-coloured salvo with such
violence that, if it failed to drive away the pain altogether, it must
have rendered him a martyr to that complaint for the rest of his life.

After getting a thorough soaking they were sprinkled all over with a fine
red powder, which, caking upon them, completed the ceremony by rendering
them the most muddy, sticky-looking objects imaginable, as they withdrew
from the presence of the young Rajah, after receiving pawn.

We were now offered balls of powder: had we thrown one at his Majesty,
which some of his household seemed very anxious we should do, nothing
could have saved us from a deluge. To commence the game upon the royal
platform is the signal of indiscriminate warfare throughout the whole
palace; the now passive troops would then have been allowed to retaliate,
the garden-engines would have been stormed and captured by opposing
squadrons, and the battle would have raged furiously until dark whereas
now, company of soldiers after company were ordered in to be shot down
like sheep. We, however, were contented with seeing each party come in
white and go out red, without wishing to go out red ourselves; besides
which, we should have been outnumbered, and Britons, for the first time,
would have been obliged to beat a retreat with tarnished honour as well
as tarnished jackets.

The usual ceremony of presenting scents, spices, and garlands, having
terminated, we left the young King, much pleased with his intelligence
and good-nature: though only seventeen, he is a stranger to those vices
which are generally inherent in natives, and inseparable from their
courts.

* * * * *

We were ten days on our journey to the caves of Ajunta, having spent two
or three at the hill fort of Aseerghur, a characteristic Mahratta
stronghold; it is perched 700 feet above the plain, and just capacious
enough