much bolder than elsewhere, and even make a practice of hooting and laughing at Franks. Macdonnel and myself, in our return toward the river, became the butts of some laborers in the fields; our guides, who were still in company, informed them that we had been to the top of the pyramid of Chephrenes, and the tongue of ridicule became immediately silent.

"And when they talk of it they shake their heads, And whisper one another in the ear."

Even the consul requested Mr. Hobhouse and others to certify having seen us at the top. Nothing," the traveler adds, " would tempt him to repeat his rash feat!"

A ROYAL GALAXY.

to him, and the responsible agents in whose name the order is given dare not complain." In 1853 we find that three fourths of the officers commanding regiments were singers, eunuchs, or their creatures. That any good should come out of such a state of affairs seems to Mr. Grant "as impossible as that heart of oak should flourish in a dark cellar."

He was deposed by Lord Dalhousie, and has been kept a prisoner at Calcutta, as a precautionary measure during the progress of the mutinies in India.

Of her majesty the ex-queen we know very little. Despite her royal title, she,

COPI

sent portraits of the Ex-King of Oude (Lucknow) and of his royal partner. He is a cousin of the celebrated Nusseer-udDeen, whose career is graphically described, with his drunken orgies, his licentiousness, sensuality, and cruelty, in a volume heretofore noticed in our pages, entitled "The Private Life of an Eastern King." His present ex-majesty followed in the footsteps of his predecessors. He was emphatically "a fast man."

The revenues of Oude were very large, and he lived in the greatest magnificence. The females of his harem were covered with diamonds and precious stones; and attached to his palace were beautifullycultivated gardens, but with a rather tasteless profusion of painted statues, so that Jean Jacques Rousseau was cheek by jowl with Hebe and Hercules. On grand entertainments the table would be laid out with flower-pots which were all eatable-not only the leaves and the fruits, but even the apparent earth and the pots themselves. Unfortunately for the people of Oude, the king was such a slave to opium and every species of dissipation that the finances and the army fell into the greatest disorder. "His minister," says Colonel Sleeman, 66 sees him occasionally, but he is the only gentleman that does see him. The only other men that see him are the singers from Rampore and Delhi, against whom he was so earnestly cautioned by the governor-general; and the eunuchs, whose influence is, if possible, still more mischievous than that of the singers. The minister is obliged to succumb to these singers and eunuchs, and conform to their will, or he would not hold his place. They meddle in all affairs, and influence the king's decision in every reference made

ers.

more than a slave and a plaything. The harems of the Turkish ladies have often been described by Eastern female travelThe zenana of the Mussulman Indian courts appears to be conducted on the same principles of vailing and exclusion. Besides eunuchs the harem of the King of Oude used to be guarded by women, armed. Every portion of the private apartments of both the Palace of Lucknow and of the country seat of Dil Kushar, are inaccessible to the curious when the female part of the family is there.

The author of the volume above referred to mentions that many of these ladies never see a garden or the outer world, and remark on flowers, "How beautiful must the place be where they grow!" and a European lady has been asked how they look in the ground. As we cannot describe the mental or the moral qualities of the exqueen, we may, perhaps, afford some amusement to our lady readers by describing her dress. She wears, then, or did in her palmy days, wide trowsers of satin, or cloth of gold, falling loosely over the instep, where they are either gathered and tied, or left as a train, according as the prevailing fashion may be. At the waist they, that is, the trowsers, are confined by a broad ribbon of gold or silver tissue, the ends of which hang down before, terminating in rich tassels which reach below the knee. These tassels are richly ornamented with jewels and pearls. The pyjamas (do you know what pyjamas are?) are much fuller below the knee than above, and gradually contract upward until they fit quite close at the waist. The bodice is of transparent gauze, without a single wrinkle, and adorned in the neck part with gold bangles or embroidery. The

relations were maintained. The court of Cathmandhu can scarcely be called an absolute monarchy, in consequence of the large amount of republican independence in the hill chiefs. The present dynasty is comparatively modern, and owes its rise to the talents, bravery, and prudence of Prithee Nuragun Sah, a Ghoorkah, who, having disciplined a body of European troops in imitation of Clive, subdued the Nepaul valley in 1768, and deposed the old Bunsee dynasty. Caste was obtained for one of his successors, in the beginning of this century, by carrying off a

of India. When she was ill of small-pox he sent to Benares for learned doctors and physicians; but when she died each of the physicians had his right ear and his nose cut off.

The queen of the late rajah was the daughter of a Gouruckpore, formerly of low birth, but possessed of great talent for intrigue, which was her ruin, as it was found necessary to divorce her on account of her sterility, and she was succeeded by the mother of the present Rajah, who in his turn has taken to himself the lady whose portrait we give.