and elegantly caparisoned. On the
leading elephant of this _cortege_, and the most sumptuously
decorated, was carried the _pebble god_, who was taken to pay his
bridal visit (barat) to the little _shrub goddess_. All the
ceremonies of a regular marriage are gone through; and, when
completed, the bride and bridegroom are left to repose together in
the temple of Ludhaura[11] till the next season. 'Above a hundred
thousand people', the priest said, 'were present at the ceremony this
year at the Raja's invitation, and feasted upon his bounty.'[12]

The old man and I got into a conversation upon the characters of
different governments, and their effects upon the people; and he said
that bad governments would sooner or later be always put down by the
deity; and quoted this verse, which I took down with my pencil:

Tulasi, gharib na satae,
Buri gharib ki hai;
Mari khal ke phunk se
Loha bhasm ho jae.

'Oh, Raja Tulasi! oppress not the poor; for the groans of the
wretched bring retribution from heaven. The contemptible skin (in the
smith's bellows) in time melts away the hardest iron.'[13]

On leaving our tents in the morning, we found the ground all round
white with hoar frost, as we had found it for several mornings
before;[14] and a little canary bird, one of the two which travelled
in my wife's palankeen, having, by the carelessness of the servants
been put upon the top without any covering to the cage, was killed by
the cold, to her great affliction. All attempts to restore it to life
by the warmth of her bosom were fruitless.

On the 7th[15] we came nine miles to Bamhauri over a soil still
basaltic, though less rich, reposing upon syenite, which frequently
rises and protrudes its head above the surface, which is partially
and badly cultivated, and scantily peopled. The silent signs of bad
government could not be more manifest. All the extensive plains,
covered with fine long grass, which is rotting in the ground from
want of domestic cattle or distant markets. Here, as in every other
part of Central India, the people have a great variety of good
spontaneous, but few cultivated, grasses. They understand the
character and qualities of these grasses extremely well. They find
some thrive best in dry, and some in wet seasons; and that of
inferior quality is often prized most because it thrives best when
other kinds cannot thrive at all, from an excess or a deficiency of
rain. When cut green they all mak