At the end attar of roses was brought, into which little pieces of cotton, fixed on slips of bamboo, were dipped, and given to each person. The heat, dust, stench of the unwashed multitude, noise, and increasing familiarity of the lower orders, warned us to retire, and we effected our retreat with precipitancy. The Rajah and his brother were very fine boys, lively, frank, unaffected, and well disposed: they have evidently a good guide in the old Dewan; but it is melancholy to think how surely, should they grow up in possession of their present rank, they will lapse into slothful habits, and take their place amongst the imbeciles who now represent the once powerful Rajahs of Bengal. We rode back to our tents by a bright moonlight, very dusty and tired, and heartily glad to breathe the cool fresh air, after the stifling ordeal we had undergone. On the following evening the elephants were again in waiting to conduct us to the Rajah. He and his relations were assembled outside the gates, mounted upon elephants, amid a vast concourse of people. The children and Dewan were seated in a sort of cradle; the rest were some in howdahs, and some astride on elephants' backs, six or eight together. All the idols were paraded before them, and powdered with red dust; the people howling, shouting, and sometimes quarrelling. Our elephants took their places amongst those of the Rajah; and when the mob had sufficiently pelted one another with balls and dirty red powder, a torchlight procession was formed, the idols leading the way, to a very large tank, bounded by a high rampart, within which was a broad esplanade round the water. The effect of the whole was very striking, the glittering cars and barbaric gaud of the idols showing best by torchlight; while the white robes and turbans of the undulating sea of people, and the great black elephants picking their way with matchless care and consideration, contrasted strongly with the quiet moonbeams sleeping on the still broad waters of the tank. Thence the procession moved to a field, where the idols were placed on the ground, and all dismounted: the Dewan then took the children by the hand, and each worshipped his tutelary deity in a short prayer dictated by the attendant Brahmin, and threw a handful of red dust in its face. After another ordeal of powder, singing, dancing, and suffocation, our share in the Hooli ended; and having been promised elephants for the following morning, we bade a cordial farewell to our engaging little hosts and their staid old governor.