CHAPTER III.
DELHI.
I HAD telegraphed from Allahabad to Colonel Davies, the Commissioner of Delhi, to whom I was to report myself, to ask what I was to do on arrival; and he most kindly sent a chuprassee (which is the north-country word for puttewallah, mentioned before) to the railway, with a letter asking me to come to stay with him. So here I am at Ludlow Castle, Delhi!
The Colonel and his wife are charming hosts. Everything here is the camp and of the camp : I have seen and heard of nothing else. It is situated beyond the celebrated ridge held by our troops during the siege, and even yet in the midst of the camp are the ruins of bungalows destroyed by the war, asserting our empire more surely than all the preparations for the proclamation.
Far away on the plain are the encampments of the different rajahs. Never has there been such a gathering before. Mrs. Davies kindly drove me through the camp on the morning of Saturday, and in the afternoon I went up on my own account. This morning I have been up again, and went on to the place of assembly. Oh, horror! what have I to paint? A kind of thing that outdoes the Crystal Palace in "hideosity." It has been designed by an engineer, and is all iron, gold, red, blue, and white. The dais for the chiefs is 200 yards across, and the Viceroy's dais is right in the middle, and is a kind of scarlet temple 80 feet high. Never was there such Brummagem ornament, or more atrocious taste. Everything is designed by the Royal
