He dresses with great elegance, mostly in
azure-coloured satin, surmounted by a rose-coloured turban and a
waistband of the same colour. All his motions are graceful, and his
manners have an exquisite polish. A greater master of all the
_convenances_ I have never seen, though he is of slender capacity,
and, as I have said, in stature less than five feet high.
A poor, half-naked man, reduced to beggary by the late famine, ran
along by my horse to show me the road, and, to the great amusement of
my attendants, exclaimed that he felt exactly as if he were always
falling down a well, meaning as if he were immersed in cold water. He
said that the cold season was suited only to gentlemen who could
afford to be well clothed; but, to a poor man like himself, and the
great mass of people, in Bundelkhand at least, the hot season was
much better. He told me that 'the late Raja, though a harsh, was
thought to be a just man;[26] and that his good sense, and, above
all, his _good fortune_ (ikbal) had preserved the principality
entire; but that God only, and the forbearance of the Honourable
Company, could now serve it under such an imbecile as the present
chief'.
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