' I improved these natural advantages; and, while
in cantonment during the hot winds at Chittybobbary, allowed my hair to
grow very long, as did my beard, which reached to my waist. It took
me two hours daily to curl my hair in ten thousand little cork-screw
ringlets, which waved over my shoulders, and to get my moustaches well
round to the corners of my eyelids. I dressed in loose scarlet trousers
and red morocco boots, a scarlet jacket, and a shawl of the same color
round my waist; a scarlet turban three feet high, and decorated with a
tuft of the scarlet feathers of the flamingo, formed my head-dress, and
I did not allow myself a single ornament, except a small silver skull
and crossbones in front of my turban. Two brace of pistols, a Malay
creese, and a tulwar, sharp on both sides, and very nearly six feet
in length, completed this elegant costume. My two flags were each
surmounted with a red skull and cross-bones, and ornamented, one with
a black, and the other with a red beard (of enormous length, taken from
men slain in battle by me). On one flag were of course the arms of
John Company; on the other, an image of myself bestriding a prostrate
elephant, with the simple word, 'Gujputi' written underneath in the
Nagaree, Persian, and Sanscrit characters.
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