the colonel, greatly delighted, 'you could provide us with
a few of these crows, we should really feel very much obliged to you;
for we have a long and cold campaign before us among the bleak hills
of Nepal; and we are all fond of crows.'

'Indeed,' returned the Raja, 'I shall be happy to send you as many as
you wish.' ('Much' and 'many' are expressed by the same term.)

'Then we should be glad to have two or three bags full, if it would
not be robbing you.'

'Not in the least,' said the Raja; 'I will go home and order them to
be collected immediately.'

In the evening, as the officers, with the colonel at their head, were
sitting down to dinner, a man came up to announce the Raja's present.
Three fine large bags were brought in, and the colonel requested that
one might be opened immediately. It was opened accordingly, and the
mess butler ('khansaman') drew out by the legs a fine old crow. The
colonel immediately saw the mistake, and laughed as heartily as the
rest at the result. A polite message was sent to the Raja, requesting
that he would excuse his having made it--for he had had half a dozen
men out shooting crows all day with their matchlocks. Few Europeans
spoke the language better than General ------, and I do not believe
that one European in a thousand, at this very moment, makes any
difference, or knows any difference, in the sound of the two terms.

Kam Baksh had one sister married to the King of Oudh, and another to
Mirza Salim, the younger son of the Emperor. Mirza Salim and his wife
could not agree, and a separation took place, and she went to reside
with her sister, the Queen of Oudh. The King saw her frequently; and,
finding her more beautiful than his wife, he demanded her also in
marriage from her father, who resided at Lucknow, the capital of
Oudh, on a pension of five thousand rupees a month from the King. He
would not consent, and demanded his daughter; the King, finding her
willing to share his bed and board with her sister, would not give
her up.[17] The father got his old friend, Colonel Gardiner, who had
married a Muhammadan woman of rank, to come down and plead his cause.
The King gave up the young woman, but at the same time stopped the
father's pension, and ordered him and all his family out of his
dominions. He set out with Colonel Gardiner and his daughter, on his
road to Delhi, through Kasganj, the residence of the colonel, who was
one day recommending the prince to seek consolation