All things were now ready, but before the army broke ground a grand ceremony was to take place, a ceremony which had indeed been arranged before any note of war had been sounded. On November 29th Lord Auckland and Runjeet Singh met at Ferozepore. It was a magnificent pageant. The Viceroy's camp was pitched about four miles from the river Gharra. The English army lay on the plain, a noble force, in perfect order and condition, and brought together, according to Havelock, in a manner that had never before been equalled. Escorted by the principal military and political English officers, Runjeet Singh rode up on his elephant through a splendid guard of honour, amid the thunder of artillery and the clash of innumerable bands, to the Durbar tent. Lord Auckland and Sir Henry Fane rode out to meet him, and as the two cavalcades joined such was the crush and uproar that many of the Sikh chiefs, thinking there was some design afoot on their prince, began "to blow their matches and grasp their weapons with a mingled air of distrust and ferocity." With some difficulty a passage was cleared, and the little decrepit old man, supported by the Viceroy and the Commander-in-chief, entered the tent where the costly presents prepared for him were laid out. Ordnance of British make, horses and elephants magnificently caparisoned, were all inspected and admired, and, while a royal salute thundered without, the prince bowed low before a picture of Queen Victoria, borne into his presence by Sir Willoughby Cotton. As the infirm old chief was being conducted round the tent he stumbled and fell to the ground at the very muzzle of one of the British guns. A murmur of horror arose from his Sirdars at so dire an omen, but as the Viceroy and Sir Henry Fane hastened to raise him to his feet, their hearts were comforted by the reflection that though their chief had fallen before the British guns, the highest representatives of the British Queen had raised him again to his feet. On the following day the visit was returned amid a scene of still greater splendour and variety. According to an eye-witness "the Sikhs shone down the English." All the great Sirdars were present in their most gorgeous trappings and mounted on their finest steeds, while from a Sikh band the strains of our own national anthem rose upon the air, and from the Sikh guns pealed forth the salute ordained for royalty alone. It must be confessed, however, that Runjeet Singh's ideas of ceremony were not all of the same exalted nature. At a later period of the day, after all the due formalities were over, the Viceroy was required to be present at "an unseemly display of dancing girls, and the antics of some male buffoons." The two following days were devoted to military exercises. On the first Sir Henry Fane manoeuvred the British force with elaborate skill and display; and on the second the Sikh cavalry executed some less intricate movements with the unqualified approval of their experienced critics.