We went to our ball last night--it was pretty; the room was hung round with such profusion of garlands and a sort of stage, on which there were green arches decked out with flowers; but what particularly took my fancy was a set of European soldiers dressed up for the night as footmen, _real red plush trousers_, with blue coats and red collars, and white cotton stockings, and powdered heads, and they carried about trays of tea and ices. After the turbaned heads and 'the trash and tiffany,' as Hook says, with which we are surrounded, you cannot conceive what a pleasant English look this gave to the room. Such fat, rosy English footmen! It is very odd how sometimes the sudden recurrence of some common English custom shows the unnatural state of things in which we live--that red plush! it was just like Rousseau's 'Voilà de la pervenche,' only not quite so romantic. To-day, before I was dressed, Rosina said that G.'s nazir wanted to speak to me, and I found him in my tent at the head of at least a hundred yards of 'trash and tiffany,' come to hope I would ask my lord to stay another day, as to-morrow is the great Mussulman holiday--they call it their Buckra Eed, or sounds to that effect; and it is, in fact, a commemoration of Abraham offering up Isaac, only they do it in honour of Ishmael. Nothing can be more inconvenient, but I never can refuse the nazir anything, he looks so timid and gentlemanlike; so I went to G. with the deputation, and we have altered all our plans, and may have to march on Sunday to make up for it. A shocking sacrifice of Christianity to Mahomedanism! only, as I said before, I cannot refuse the nazir; and also, the servants have in general borne the march very well, and deserve some consideration. We have written now to revive a play the privates of the Artillery had wanted to act, and which we had declined for want of time to go and see it. Camp, one march from Kurnaul, Thursday, March 8. I took Mrs. A. out in the carriage on Tuesday evening, and after I had taken her home, I was caught in a regular storm of dust, what they call a dry storm here, much worse than a thick London fog. The syces walked before the horses feeling their way, and hallooing because the postilions could not see them; and as it was, I came in at the wrong end of the camp with the syces missing. W. tried to go out to dinner, but could not find his way.