n of trust, and the
officers had left us, we discovered several pairs of bright eyes peeping
out at us through the partly shattered venetians forming the doors and
windows of the house; and the person whom I had taken for a shrivelled
old woman came out and entered into conversation with me, at first in
Hindoostanee, but afterwards in very good and grammatical English. I
then discovered that what I had mistaken for a crack-voiced old woman, a
second edition of "the mother of the maids," was no other than a
confidential eunuch of the palace, who told me he had been over thirty
years about the court of Lucknow, employed as a sort of private
secretary under successive kings, as he was able to read and write
English, and could translate the English newspapers, etc., and could
also, judging from his villainous appearance, be trusted to strangle a
refractory begum or cut the throat of any one prying too closely into
court secrets. He was almost European in complexion, and appeared to me
to be more than seventy years of age, but he may have been much younger.
He also told me that most of his early life had been spent at the court
of Constantinople, and that he had there learned English, and had found
this of great use to him at the court of Lucknow, where he had not only
kept up the knowledge, but had improved it by reading.

By this time one of the younger begums, or nautch girls (I don't know
which), came out to see the guard, and did not appear by any means too
bashful. She evidently wished for a closer acquaintance, and I asked my
friend to request her to go back to her companions; but this she
declined to do, and wanted particularly to know why we were dressed in
petticoats, and if we were not part of the Queen of England's regiment
of eunuchs, and chaffed me a good deal about my fair hair and youthful
appearance. I was twenty-four hours on that guard before the begums were
removed by Major Bruce to a house somewhere near the Martiniere, and
during that twenty-four hours I learned more, through the assistance of
the English-speaking eunuch, about the virtues of polygamy and the
domestic slavery, intrigues, and crimes of the harem than I have learned
in all my other thirty-five years in India. If I dared, I could write a
few pages that would give the Government of India and the public of
England ten times more light on those cherished institutions than they
now possess. The authorities professed to take charge of those cage