A Journey to Katmandu (the Capital of Napaul), with the Camp of Jung Bahadoor: Including a Sketch of the Nepaulese Ambassador at HomeOliphant, Laurence
History
A Journey to Katmandu (the Capital of Napaul), with the Camp of Jung Bahadoor: Including a Sketch of the Nepaulese Ambassador at Home
Oliphant, Laurence
Nepal -- Description and travel
Busreet and I went over the ladies' apartments, which must have been very
cheerless, since they are entirely composed of immense slabs of red
sandstone and look hard and uncomfortable. Descending from them to the
level of the court-yard, Busreet took me into a narrow sort of corridor,
and jabbered incessantly for some minutes. I thought I could distinguish
the words "hide and seek;" but it was so very unnatural to suppose that
the only words of English Busreet knew were "hide and seek," that I
imagined he was repeating some Hindostanee phrase, until he dodged round
corners and behind pillars, crying out as he did so, "Hide and seek! Hide
and seek!"--from which I at last understood that he meant to inform me
that the ladies used to play that Occidental game in Ackbar's harem; so,
after a short game to show the old man that I understood him, we strolled
on to a singular kiosk-like little building, my guide every now and then
renewing the game and hobbling round corners despite of my remonstrances
to the contrary. The little temple was the residence of the holy man,
and near it a room of most extraordinary construction astonished me not a
little, since I could not divine its use, and Busreet afforded no
information on the subject, as he pulled my head down and whispered
something in my ear, which left me in doubt whether what he told me was a
secret, or whether he meant to intimate that it was a whispering gallery:
its real use I afterwards discovered.
In the centre of a square room was a pillar 15 or 16 feet in height, the
circular top of which was six or eight feet in diameter and had been
surrounded by a stone parapet; communicating with this singular pulpit-
like seat were four narrow stone passages or bridges, one from each
corner of the room. In each corner a minister of the realm used to sit,
only one of whom might approach their royal master at a time. Seated on
this centre point high above the heads of his subjects, who crowded the
room below, and approached only by the four narrow causeways, the King
deemed himself secure from assassination.
It was an original idea, and, after inventing so novel a method for
guarding against treachery, he deserved to die in his bed, as in fact he
did.
Emerging from this singular apartment, we crossed a square, in the midst
of which was placed an immense slab of stone, raised a little off the
ground; on each of the four sides of this slab there were 16 squares
marked on the ground like those on a chessboard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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