I received an invitation to dine with the Maharajah. My wife was also asked to accompany the Resident’s party, to see the fireworks which were to be exhibited in the evening. So far as dinner was concerned, there was amply sufficient to eat and drink, but on an occasion of that sort one goes with rather a wish to be introduced to the host. My experience of that one dinner party did not afford me an opportunity of having that desire gratified. We had been requested to come camp fashion, which means that each guest is expected to bring his own plates, knives, forks, tumblers, napkins, &c. I landed at the mean and dirty entrance to the palace, where the shouting boatmen seemed at war with each other. I clambered up the steep stairs, but there was no one to receive me, or to show me the way. I found myself at length in a large dining-hall, in which some eighty khitmegars were making as great a noise as the boatmen below, each servant endeavouring to secure the best place for his master. After getting past this pandemonium of waiters, I was shown a door, through which I proceeded to an open terrace, where a number of chairs were placed in a semicircle, many of them already appropriated by other guests like myself--their occupants being officers on leave from British territory--so I took possession of one of them. In the open space in front of the seats two or three nautch girls were going through that dreary and unmusical performance called a ‘nautch.’ In the meantime, I discovered some old friends, stranded like myself. At length, as, somehow or other, everybody intuitively knew that dinner was ready, a rush was made towards the door. Excited khitmegars seized their masters and dragged them to the place they had secured for them. I was charmed to find myself situated between a brother officer and an old friend I had not met since the Crimean days. The table was groaning with really a good dinner, for everything had been placed on it at once. The champagne was Cutler’s best, and our little coterie had our dinner and jokes in a very pleasant way. We had some fun about the Maharajah’s hookem (order). I wanted a glass of iced water, and I desired my servant to bring the water, and pour it into my silver mug. A great man, clad in red, came behind my chair and informed me ‘that it was the Maharajah’s hookem (order) that the tumblers were to be taken to the water, and not the water to the tumblers.’ Verily it was a jovial party. Then the Resident rose, and proposed the health of the Maharajah. We cheered uproariously. Some one then proposed the health of the Resident, ‘the representative of our beloved Queen,’ we soldiers cheering loudly for our sovereign, more than for her representative. The costumes worn by His Highness’s guests were peculiar; some appearing in uniform, others in evening dress, while a number wore ancient shooting-coats which bore testimony to hard work among the mountains of Cashmere.