_My dear Mr. Greville_, At last a copy of _The Court and Camp_ has reached Calcutta, and was picked up by an alert Aide-de-Camp, who was in the shop when it arrived. It is immensely well got up, and altogether, I think, a pretty little book, and more of a book than I expected. It is a pity more copies did not come by one ship, for there are quantities bespoken. But in the meanwhile everybody is borrowing this, and they all delight in the introductory chapter, because, of course, not one of them has the least idea of the _history_ of the Sikhs as connected with India, nor of India as connected with anything else, so they are all delighted at learning it so cheaply, and they look upon you as a prodigy of Eastern learning. There are one or two misprints in the book, which do very well for England, but is the sort of thing they will take up here, where their intellects are below mistake par, but just up to a misprint; and I should imagine that the Agra Akbar will wonder at the ignorance of the aristocracy who can call a thermantidote a phermantidote, and that the _Delhi Gazette_, which is courtly, will say it ought to be phermantidote, and that they could give the Greek derivation, only they have no Greek type. I think you ought to feel a sort of paternal interest in the Sikh dynasty, and would like to know that Kharak Singh[484] still retains the name of King, and Mr. Clerk (the Governor-General’s agent) says that Noormahal’s attentions to his father in public increase in proportion as he deprives him of all power. He says Noormahal all through the Durbar is occupied in wiping the dust from Kharak’s band, when not a particle has settled, or with a Chowry in driving away flies from his father’s hand, which they never approach, and that Kharak, though a fool, is wise enough not to like these demonstrations of tenderness.