Sat 3 [3 January 1903] Up at 7 and Mr Landon came at 8, waited
about till 8.30 when we breakfasted and went out riding. We went
outside the town and down to the Jumna [Yamuna]. NB when you see
lots of vultures sitting on the trees, don't go[?] ...... ....... It was charming.
There were no Europeans at all, only the natives washing by the river
and watering their oxen and buffaloes. On the big bridge there was a
block of bullock carts coming into Delhi, the bullocks standing
patiently in the dust. They are very bad animals for a dusty country for
they raise dense clouds by their sloppy walk and their noses are so
near the ground that half India must have passed grain by grain
through the bullocks' bodies. We rode on under the Fort, the Diwani
Khas and little pavilions looking lovely from this side; past many tiny
shrines and in by a gate near the Kalan Masjid which has lovely stripy
domes and tall minarets with a flower top. Then to the Commandants
where I tried to see Miss Muir but she wasn't up and so along under
the walls, outside the town again and back by the Ajmer gate and
home by many little lanes. H [Hugo] had Malone to lunch and I
lunched with Mrs Tyler in the C in C's camp where I met a Battine,
brother of ours, and his wife, she a very nice woman, and another man
who was an aide I suppose. Sat with Mrs Tyler after which she
showed me photographs of Madura [Madurai]. She is miserable at
leaving India. She and Mrs Battine talked rot about the Taj. I'm sure
it's boring[?]. Came home and went to sleep for an hour and we dined
early and went to the Investiture in the Diwani 'Am. It was very
beautiful, the place lovely and the uniforms fine. The Cadets looked
well. Saw Susan, Mr Chirol, Mr Landon, Col. Olivier, Dartreys,
Barneses, sat between the Brocklebanks and the Playfairs but we
could neither see nor hear. The procession was very swell, English
men and natives walking together, but the Investiture took awfully long
and after the Star of India was over, we went home and got in at 11.
We heard after that Lord C [Curzon] was very cross at people's
having done this and having talked so much. Old Nabha got the star.