“Our mutual friend Marpeet has apprized me of your approach; I write, therefore, to say that, as a friend of his, it will give me great pleasure if you can spare me a day or two, if not pressed to join. Your Colonel Bobbery I know well, and will undertake to mollify him if necessary. The sowar, the bearer of this, will conduct you at once to my encampment, and you can instruct your people to follow in the morning. I have a spare tent and cot at your service. “Hoping soon to see you, “I am yours truly, “AUGUSTUS SYMPKIN.” “That will do,” I inwardly ejaculated, as, after examining the seal and superscription, I conveyed the letter to my pocket. I instantly ordered my pony, and girding on my spit, wherewith to destroy any chance giants or dragons I might encounter on the way, I gave the signal, and the sowar and I were soon in a long canter for the judge’s tents. After a ride of about eight miles, the turn of the road exhibited to my view the judge’s encampment, in which were tents and people enough for nearly a regiment of five hundred men. Under a spreading banyan-tree were a couple of elephants, eating branches of trees for their tea, as we do water-cresses, and sundry camels bubbling[54] and roaring, and uprearing their lofty necks by the well-side, where, from the force of association, I almost looked for Jacob and the fair Rebecca, as represented in those Scripture prints which in infancy we love to dwell upon, and whence probably originates that exquisite charm, that, through our future life, is ever interwoven with Eastern scenes and customs. Under a couple of tamarind trees, four or five beautiful horses were picketed; amongst them a milk-white Arab, with a flowing tail. This was the judge’s favourite steed. “Pretty well all this,” thought I, “for one man, and he, too, perhaps, the son of some small gentleman.” My arrival caused a considerable stir at the large tent. Two or three chupprassies, or silver-badge men, darted in to announce me; the hearer caught up the huge red umbrella or chattah, to be prepared for the great man’s _exit_, and to guard his honoured cranium from the rays of the now declining sun. One or two others held aside the purdahs, or chicks, and Mr. Sympkin, a well-compacted, hearty, jolly, but withal gentlemanly man, of forty-five or fifty, or thereabouts, stood forth to view; he was followed by a fat squabby man, of the colour of yellow soap or saffron, who, though attired in something like the European garb, did not, nevertheless, in other respects, seem to belong to our quarter of the globe.