At last we discovered some drinkable champagne, and drank her Majesty's health with all the honours; after which we paid a similar compliment to his Majesty of Oudh, while all the grandees of the realm--who, sitting on chairs like ourselves, lined one side of the long range of tables, and seemed enveloped in a blaze of glistening jewels--looked as if they thought it all a very disrespectful proceeding. There was a very loud band that played "God save the Queen," and two or three very discordant singing women, who sang what I suppose was an Ode upon Sauce, as being the Oudh national anthem. At length dinner was over, and immediately there was a rush to the windows to see the fireworks, which seemed to be all let off at once, so that it was impossible to distinguish anything but a universal twisting and whirling, and fizzing and cracking; and an elephant looked very brilliant for a moment, and then went off through his eyes with a bang, and was no more;--sham men exploded; and real men jumped into sparkling, crackling flames; and rockets and fire-balloons went up; so that, if the lessee of Vauxhall or Cremorne could let off or send up half as many things as were let off and went up on this occasion in the court-yard of the Lucknow Durbar, he would make a fortune. At last everything that had not gone in some other direction went out; the King stood at the top of the stairs, and those who were presented, after receiving tinsel necklaces from the hands of royalty, passed down stairs, and the guests went away by whatever means of conveyance they might possess--a very motley and somewhat noisy party. The mode which we made use of to return to cantonments, a distance of four miles, was rather singular, not to be recommended except on an emergency: the carriages seemed to have decreased in proportion as the number of guests had multiplied, and in some unaccountable manner many of us were left to accomplish our return as best we could. It was in vain that we attempted to persuade the seven occupants of a buggy to receive us among them--we met with a stern refusal. It was useless to supplicate a number of rich Baboos, on a handsome elephant, to help us in our difficulties; the rich Baboos laughed, and told us we might get up behind, if we liked. And so all that brilliant throng went whirling back to cantonments, and we were left disconsolately standing in the court-yard, with the probability of having to trudge home. This was not to be thought of for a moment, and we had just arrived at a pitch of desperation when a handsome carriage, with the blinds all up, and drawn by a pair of high-stepping horses, came rattling toward us. Not a moment was to be lost; we rushed frantically forward and ordered an immediate halt. In vain did the venerable coachman and determined-looking servant intimate to us that the carriage was his Majesty's; his Majesty, we assured them, was still carousing in his