‘_Feb. 5, 1881._--I went to a wedding yesterday, one of the silly child-marrying affairs, with which the Hindus delight to ruin themselves and run into debt. Poor ---- quite agreed with me that it is very foolish; but he and his relatives cannot resist dastur,[95] so both my kahars receive next to nothing for five months, to work out their debt to me. I had to do rather a difficult thing for an old lady, in order to get to the wedding-party, climb a real ladder--not very good--of eight rounds. I am not as agile as I used to be, and had to go up and up, and then down and down, very slowly and cautiously. To parody Byron’s lines--