Reality is so wonderful in India that I have hardly dared to tell the following without gradually preparing my reader for it. This young prince, whose guest I was and with whom I talked a good deal, is a poor foundling, having been adopted by the old prince, who died childless, and by the consent of the English government he was made his sole heir. His landed estates were so large that he paid two million two hundred thousand dollars to the English government in annual taxes on the income from his lands! How large his total income is, nobody knows. Inside the palace walls, which were protected by a strong body-guard night and day, were deep subterranean vaults with secret entrances, where gold and jewels were concealed in such quantities as may be imagined only when it is remembered that during a period of three hundred years the family has been accustomed to accumulate these treasures by at least three "lacs rupees," or one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, a year. But during the same time millions upon millions of people have starved to death in the principality of Burdwan, and even now it is safe to say that nine-tenths of the people who cultivate the soil and live on the estates of the maharajah and pay him tribute are so poor that they could scarcely sustain their life a single month in case of drought or inundations. To describe the whole fête would require a whole book, and I therefore select the installation ceremony, which, by the way, was the most important of the festivities. It took place in a small mango forest, about a mile from the palace. A pleasant country road, decorated with banners and spanned by triumphal arches covered with flowers, led to the place. A tent pavilion sixty feet long and forty feet wide was erected about a hundred yards from the road. The tent was supported by forty pillars covered with silver tinsel paper, and the canvas consisted of heavy linen woven in many-colored squares, which were about three feet each way. The sides of the tent were open, and between each of the outer pillars was stationed a Hindoo soldier dressed in shoes, gray stockings, black knee breeches, and a red coat, one half of which was embroidered with gold and silver, while the head was covered by a red turban richly adorned with gold ornaments. These soldiers were gigantic, dark figures, armed with curved sabres and long lances. They stood immovable as statues, and only the rolling of their flashing eye-balls showed that they were living men. At the upper end of the tent was an elevated platform with a gilt chair for the governor, and behind this, chairs for the European ladies. From the platform to the entrance at the opposite end was an aisle, on each side of which were four rows of chairs for the guests, all numbered and placed according to their rank. The aisle and the walk to the country road were covered with expensive Persian rugs, and chamberlains in dazzling costumes conducted the guests from the