It was the very first time that Jacqua – or anyone for that matter – had been in my room and I confess I was a little worried that he might be upset by the disorder (for he is so very neat in everything). But on the contrary he was quite entertained – or so at least I like to think for he laughed out loud when a shoe was discovered on my only chair (but whether I am right to read this as a sign of amusement I do not know, for I have noticed that Chinese people do sometimes laugh when they are shocked). Fortunately the mishap did not prevent him from sitting on the chair or else I would have had a problem on my hands – for I had already resolved, you see, to depict him in a seated position, after the manner of Andrea del Sarto’s ‘St John the Baptist’ (I’m sure I’ve shown you an engraving: it is truly the most prodigious picture – of a youth whose robe has been pushed down to his waist, baring a splendidly muscular and utterly unsaintly chest). Of course I was not so brazen as to suggest that Jacqua disrobe himself in like manner (I am not, as you well know, my darling Puggle-bunny, one of those feeble painters who needs to see a body in order to create its likeness) – and besides one does not wish to seem forward … apart from which it is also quite cold in my room, and it is not right, I think, to incommode one’s Friends (but perhaps when it is a little warmer …).

I did however take the liberty of arranging Jacqua’s limbs to my satisfaction and he bore this imposition with such good humour that I may have lingered on this task a little longer than I should have done. For scarcely had I repaired to my easel than we were interrupted by a great uproar in the Maidan. We both ran out to the terrace and were confronted with a most disquieting sight. A crowd had gathered in the Maidan and people were rushing about in disarray. At the centre of the tamasha was a paltan of Manchu sepoys with flags, pennants and plumes protruding from their helmets and uniforms. The paltan was marching through the Maidan in a square formation; in the midst of it some dozen or so prisoners could be seen, bound together by chains. Such was the press of people around the captives that not much was visible of them apart from their heads – and of these only a couple were tonsured and pigtailed in the Chinese manner: the rest were turbaned or bandannaed in an unmistakably Hindusthani fashion!

Achhas in chains? The local constabulary so rarely imposes itself upon foreigners that Jacqua was as amazed as I: he too had never seen anything like it before. Who could these unfortunate Achhas be? What was their crime?

Seized by curiosity, Jacqua and I ran down to the Maidan and thrust ourselves into the crowd.