is life.'

Perhaps (he wrote) months of the monotony of a Calcutta existence may
render the mind more sensitive to novelty and beauty; at any rate, the
impressions experienced on visiting Agra at this time have been
singularly vivid and keen. The surpassing beauty of the buildings,
among which the Taj stands pre-eminent; the vast concourse of chiefs
and retainers, combining so many of the attributes of feudal and
chivalrous times with the picturesqueness in attire and gorgeousness
in colouring, which only the East can supply; produced an effect of
fairyland, of which it was difficult to divest oneself in order to
come down to the sterner realities of the present. These realities
consisted mainly in receiving the chiefs at private and public
Durbars, exchanging presents and civilities with them, and returning
their visits. The great Durbar was attended by a larger number of
chiefs than ever before assembled on a similar occasion.'

[Sidenote: Grand Durbar.]

The Grand Durbar, or 'Royal Court,' was held on the morning of the 17th of
February: a grander gathering, it was said, than even the great one held by
Lord Canning in 1859. The scene was one of remarkable splendour--a
splendour alien to the simple and unostentatious tastes and habits of the
chief actor in it, but which he knew how to use with effect when taking his
place as Suzerain in an Assembly of Princes. To aid us in conceiving it, we
must have recourse to the picture sketched at the time in one of the Indian
Newspapers.

'It is difficult to describe--without seeing it it is impossible to
conceive,--a scene like that presented at a grand Durbar of this kind.
One may imagine any amount of display of jewels, gold and glitter,
gorgeous dresses, splendid uniforms, and handsome faces. You may see
far more beautiful sights in the shape of court grandeur at our
European palaces, at Versailles and St. James's; but nothing that will
give you an idea of an Indian Durbar. The exhibition of costly jewels,
the display of wealth in priceless ornaments and splendid dresses, the
strange mixture of wealth and poverty, the means of accomplishing
magnificence and splendour enjoyed to such profusion, yet rendered
almost void to this end from want of taste! "Barbaric wealth," indeed,
you behold; barbaric from its extent and profusion, and barbaric in
the hideous use made of