sist upon the fulfilment
of his promise. On the evening of the 11th I got the above report of
his interview with the King from Captain Bird; and, on the 12th, I
wrote to tell him, that I considered him to have acted very
indiscreetly; that he had brought this vexation and mortification
upon himself by his overweening confidence in his personal influence
over the King; that he ought to have waited for instructions from me,
or at least for a reply from me to his letter, regarding the former
interview at Court; that I could not now give him the support he
required, as I could neither demand that his requisitions should be
complied with, nor tell the King that I approved of them that he had
been authorized by me to act on his own discretion in any case of
great emergency, but this could not be considered of such a
character, for no evil or inconvenience was to be apprehended from a
day or two's delay, since the question really was, whether his
Majesty should have a dozen fiddlers or only ten.

In the beginning of September 1850, the King became enamoured of one
of his mother's waiting-maids, and demanded her in marriage. See was
his mother's favourite bedfellow, and she would not part with her.
The King became angry, and to soothe him his mother told him that it
was purely out of regard for him and his children that she refused to
part with this young woman; that she had a "_sampun_," or the coiled
figure of a snake in the hair on the back of her neck. No man, will
purchase a horse with such a mark, or believe that any family can be
safe in which a horse or mare with such a mark is kept. His mother
told him, that if he cohabited with a woman having such a mark, he
and all his children must perish. The King said that he might
probably have, among his many wives, some with marks of this kind;
and that this might account for his frequent attacks of palpitation
of the heart. "No doubt," said the old Queen Dowager; "we have long
thought so; but your Majesty gets into such a towering passion when
we venture to speak of your wives, that we have been afraid to give
expression to our thoughts and fears." "Perhaps," said the King, "I
may owe to this the death, lately, of my poor son, the heir-
apparent." "We have long thought so," replied his mother. The chief
eunuch, Busheer, was forthwith ordered to inspect the back of the
necks of all save that of the chief consort, the mother of the late
and present heir-apparent. He reported th