7.'G------' appears to have been Robert Gregory C.B.

8. The fiercely contested battle of Laswâri was fought on November 1,

1803, between the British force under Lord Lake and the flower of

Sindhia's army, known as the 'Deccan Invincibles'. Sindhia's troops

lost about seven thousand killed and two thousand prisoners. The

British loss in killed and wounded amounted to more than eight

hundred. A medal to commemorate the victory was struck in London in

1851, and presented to the survivors. Laswâri is a village in the

Alwar State, 128 miles south of Delhi.

9. Bharatpur (Bhurtpore), in the Jât State of the same name, is

thirty-four miles west of Agra. In January and February, 1805, Lord

Lake four times attempted to take it by assault, and each time was

repulsed with heavy loss. On January 18, 1826, Lord Combermere

stormed the fortress. The fortifications were then dismantled. A

large portion of the walls is now standing, and presents an imposing

appearance. They seem to have been repaired. See _post_, Chapter 62.

10. 'I will answer you by quoting what I have read somewhere or

other--in _Dionysius Halicarn_., I think--that history is philosophy

teaching by example' (Bolingbroke, _Letters on the Study and Use of

History_, Letter II, p. 14 of vol. viii of edition printed by T.

Cadell, London, 1770). The Greek words are. . . . . . . .

CHAPTER 18

Birds' Nests--Sports of Boyhood.

On the 6th[1] we came to Sayyidpur, ten miles, over an undulating

country, with a fine soil of decomposed basalt, reposing upon

syenite, with veins of feldspar and quartz. Cultivation partial, and

very bad; and population extremely scanty. We passed close to a

village, in which the children were all at play; while upon the

bushes over their heads were suspended an immense number of the

beautiful nests of the sagacious 'bayâ' bird, or Indian yellow-

hammer,[2] all within reach of a grown-up boy, and one so near the

road that a grown-up man might actually look into it as he passed

along, and could hardly help shaking it. It cannot fail to strike a

European as singular to see so many birds' nests, situated close to a

village, remain unmolested within reach of so many boisterous

children, with their little proprietors and families fluttering and

chirping among them with as great a feeling of security and gaiety of

heart as the children themselves enjoy.

In any part of Europe not a nest of such a colony could have lived an

hour within reach of such a population; for the bayâ bird has no

peculiar respect paid to it by the people here, like the wren and

robin-redbreast in England. No boy in India has the slightest wish to

molest birds in their nests; it enters not into their pastimes, and

they have no feeling of pride or pleasure in it. With us it is

different--to discover birds' nests is one of the first modes in

which a boy exercises his powers, and displays his love of art. Upon

his skill in finding them he is willing to rest his first claim to

superior sagacity and enterprise. His trophies are his string of

eggs; and the eggs most prized among them are those of the nests that

are discovered with most difficulty, and attained with most danger.

The same feeling of desire to display their skill and enterprise in

search after birds' nests in early life renders the youth of England

the enemy almost of the whole animal creation throughout their after

career. The boy prides himself on his dexterity in throwing a stone

or a stick; and he practises on almost every animal that comes in his

way, till he never sees one without the desire to knock it down, or

at least to hit it; and, if it is lawful to do so, he feels it to be

a most serious misfortune not to have a stone within his reach at the

time. As he grows up, he prides himself upon his dexterity in

shooting, and he never sees a member of the feathered tribe within

shot, without a desire to shoot it, or without regretting that he has

not a gun in his hand to shoot it. That he is not entirely destitute

of sympathy, however, with the animals he maims for his amusement is

sufficiently manifest from his anxiety to put them out of pain the

moment he gets them.

A friend of mine, now no more, Captain Medwin, was once looking with

me at a beautiful landscape painting through a glass. At last he put

aside the glass, saying: 'You may say what you like, S--, but the

best landscape I know is a fine black partridge[3] falling before my

Joe Manton.'

The following lines of Walter Scott, in his _Rokeby_, have always

struck me as very beautiful:-

As yet the conscious pride of art

Had steel'd him in his treacherous part;

A powerful spring of force unguessed

That hath each gentler mood suppressed,

And reigned in many a human breast;

From his that plans the rude campaign,

To his that wastes the woodland reign, &c.[4]

Among the people of India it is very different. Children do not learn

to exercise their powers either in discovering and robbing the nests

of birds, or in knocking them down with stones and staves; and, as

they grow up, they hardly ever think of hunting or shooting for mere

amusement. It is with them a matter of business; the animal they

cannot eat they seldom think of molesting.

Some officers were one day pursuing a jackal, with a pack of dogs,

through my grounds. The animal passed close to one of my guard, who

cut him in two with his sword, and held up the reeking blade in

triumph to the indignant cavalcade; who, when they came up, were

ready to eat him alive. 'What have I done', said the poor man, 'to

offend you?' 'Have you not killed the jackal?' shouted the whipper-

in, in a fury.

'Of course I have; but were you not all trying to kill him?' replied

the poor man. He thought their only object had been to kill the

jackal, as they would have killed a serpent, merely because he was a

mischievous and noisy beast.

The European traveller in India is often in doubt whether the

peacocks, partridges, and ducks, which he finds round populous

villages, are tame or wild, till he asks some of the villagers

themselves, so assured of safety do these creatures become, and so

willing to take advantage of it for the food they find in the

suburbs. They very soon find the difference, however, between the

white-faced visitor and the dark-faced inhabitants. There is a fine

date-tree overhanging a kind of school at the end of one of the

streets in the town of Jubbulpore, quite covered with the nests of

the bayâ birds; and they are seen, every day and all day, fluttering

and chirping about there in scores, while the noisy children at their

play fill the street below, almost within arm's length of them. I

have often thought that such a tree so peopled at the door of a

school in England might work a great revolution in the early habits

and propensities of the youth educated in it. The European traveller

is often amused to see the pariah dog[5] squatted close in front of

the traveller during the whole time he is occupied in cooking and

eating his dinner, under a tree by the roadside, assured that he

shall have at least a part of the last cake thrown to him by the

stranger, instead of a stick or a stone. The stranger regards him

with complacency, as one that reposes a quiet confidence in his

charitable disposition, and flings towards him the whole or part of

his last cake, as if his meal had put him in the best possible humour

with him and all the world.

Notes:

1. December, 1835. The name of the village is given in the author's

text as Seindpore. It seems to be the place which is called Siedpore

in the next chapter.

2. The common weaver bird, _Phoceus baya, Blyth. 'Ploceinae_, the

weaver birds. . . . They build nests like a crucible, with the

opening downwards, and usually attach them to the tender branches of

a tree hanging over a well or tank. _P. baya_ is found throughout

India; its nest is made of grasses and strips of the plantain or

date-palm stripped while green. It is easily tamed and taught some

tricks, such as to load and fire a toy cannon, to pick up a ring,

&c,' (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, s.v. 'Ploceinae').

3. _Francolinus vulgaris_; a capital game bird.

4. Canto V, stanza 22, line 3.

5. The author spells the word Pareear. The editor has used the form

now customary. The word is the Tamil appellation of a large body of

the population of Southern India, which stands outside the orthodox

Hindoo castes, but has a caste organization of its own. Europeans

apply the term to the low-caste mongrel dogs which infest villages

and towns throughout India. See Yule and Burnell, _Glossary of Anglo-

Indian Words (Hobson-Jobson)_, in either edition, s.v.; and Dubois,

_Hindu Manners, &c._, 3rd ed. (1906, index, s.v.).

CHAPTER 19

Feeding Pilgrims--Marriage of a Stone with a Shrub.

At Sayyidpur[1] we encamped in a pretty little mango grove, and here

I had a visit from my old friend Jânkî Sewak, the high priest of the

great temple that projects into the Sâgar lake, and is called

Bindrâban.[2] He has two villages rent free, worth a thousand rupees

a year; collects something more through his numerous disciples, who

wander over the country; and spends the whole in feeding all the

members of his fraternity (Bairâgîs), devotees of Vishnu, as they

pass his temple in their pilgrimages. Every one who comes is

considered entitled to a good meal and a night's lodging; and he has

to feed and lodge about a hundred a day. He is a man of very pleasing

manners and gentle disposition, and everybody likes him. He was on

his return from the town of Ludhaura,[3] where he had been, at the

invitation of the Râjâ of Orchhâ, to assist at the celebration of the

marriage of Sâlagrâm with the Tulasî,[4] which there takes place

every year under the auspices and at the expense of the Râjâ, who

must be present. 'Sâlagrâms'[5] are rounded pebbles which contain the

impressions of ammonites, and are washed down into the plains of

India by the rivers from the limestone rocks in which these shells

are imbedded in the mountains of the Himalaya.[6] The Spiti valley[7]

contains an immense deposit of fossil ammonites and belemnites[8] in

limestone rocks, now elevated above sixteen thousand feet above the

level of the sea; and from such beds as these are brought down the

fragments, which, when rounded in their course, the poor Hindoo takes

for representatives of Vishnu, the preserving god of the Hindoo

triad. The Sâlagrâm is the only stone idol among the Hindoos that is

_essentially sacred_, and entitled to divine honours without the

ceremonies of consecration.[9] It is everywhere held most sacred.

During the war against Nepâl,[10] Captain B------, who commanded a

reconnoitring party from the division in which I served, one day

brought back to camp some four or five Sâlagrâms, which he had found

at the hut of some priest within the enemy's frontier. He called for

a large stone and hammer, and proceeded to examine them. The Hindoos

were all in a dreadful state of consternation, and expected to see

the earth open and swallow up the whole camp, while he sat calmly

cracking _their gods_ with his hammer, as he would have cracked so

many walnuts. The Tulasî is a small sacred shrub (_Ocymum sanctum_),

which is a metamorphosis of Sîtâ, the wife of Râma, the seventh

incarnation of Vishnu.

This little _pebble_ is every year married to this little _shrub_;

and the high priest told me that on the present occasion the

procession consisted of eight elephants, twelve hundred camels, four

thousand horses, all mounted and elegantly caparisoned. On the

leading elephant of this _cortège_, and the most sumptuously

decorated, was carried the _pebble god_, who was taken to pay his

bridal visit (barât) to the little _shrub goddess_. All the

ceremonies of a regular marriage are gone through; and, when

completed, the bride and bridegroom are left to repose together in

the temple of Ludhaura[11] till the next season. 'Above a hundred

thousand people', the priest said, 'were present at the ceremony this

year at the Râjâ's invitation, and feasted upon his bounty.'[12]

The old man and I got into a conversation upon the characters of

different governments, and their effects upon the people; and he said

that bad governments would sooner or later be always put down by the

deity; and quoted this verse, which I took down with my pencil:

Tulasî, gharîb na sâtâe,

Burî gharîb kî hai;

Marî khâl ke phûnk se

Lohâ bhasm ho jâe.

'Oh, Râjâ Tulasî! oppress not the poor; for the groans of the

wretched bring retribution from heaven. The contemptible skin (in the

smith's bellows) in time melts away the hardest iron.'[13]

On leaving our tents in the morning, we found the ground all round

white with hoar frost, as we had found it for several mornings

before;[14] and a little canary bird, one of the two which travelled

in my wife's palankeen, having, by the carelessness of the servants

been put upon the top without any covering to the cage, was killed by

the cold, to her great affliction. All attempts to restore it to life

by the warmth of her bosom were fruitless.

On the 7th[15] we came nine miles to Bamhaurî over a soil still

basaltic, though less rich, reposing upon syenite, which frequently

rises and protrudes its head above the surface, which is partially

and badly cultivated, and scantily peopled. The silent signs of bad

government could not be more manifest. All the extensive plains,

covered with fine long grass, which is rotting in the ground from

want of domestic cattle or distant markets. Here, as in every other

part of Central India, the people have a great variety of good

spontaneous, but few cultivated, grasses. They understand the

character and qualities of these grasses extremely well. They find

some thrive best in dry, and some in wet seasons; and that of

inferior quality is often prized most because it thrives best when

other kinds cannot thrive at all, from an excess or a deficiency of

rain. When cut green they all make good hay, and have the common

denomination of 'sahîa'. The finest of these grasses are two which

are generally found growing spontaneously together, and are often

cultivated together-'kêl' and 'musêl'; the third 'parwana'; fourth

'bhawâr', or 'gûniâr'; fifth 'sainâ'.[16]

Notes:

1. Spelled Siedpore in the author's text.

2. More correctly Brindâban (Vrindâvana). The name originally belongs

to one of the most sacred spots in India, situated near Mathurâ

(Muttra) on the Jumna, and the reputed scene of the dalliance between

Krishna and the milkmaids (Gopîs); also associated with the legend

Râma.

3. Twenty-seven miles north-west of Tehrî in the Orchhâ State.

4. The Tulasî plant, or basil, _Ocymum sanctum_, is 'not merely

sacred to Vishnu or to his wife Lakshmî; it is pervaded by the

essence of these deities, and itself worshipped as a deity and prayed

to accordingly. . . . The Tulasî is the object of more adoration than

any other plant at present worshipped in India. . . .It is to be

found in almost every respectable household throughout India. It is a

small shrub, not too big to be cultivated in a good-sized flower-pot,

and often placed in rooms. Generally, however, it is planted in the

courtyard of a well-to-do man's house, with a space round it for

reverential circumambulation. In real fact the Tulasî is _par

excellence_ a domestic divinity, or rather, perhaps, a woman's

divinity' (M. Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p.

333).

5. The fossil ammonites found in India include at least fifteen

species. They occur between Trichinopoly and Pondicherry as well as

in the Himalayan rocks. They are particularly abundant in the river

Gandak, which rises near Dhaulagiri in Nepâl, and falls into the

Ganges near Patna. The upper course of this river is consequently

called Sâlagrâmî. Various forms of the fossils are supposed to

represent various _avatârs_ of Vishnu (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd

ed., s.v. 'Ammonite', 'Gandak', 'Salagrama'; M. Williams, _Religious

Thought and Life in India_, pp. 69, 349). A good account of the

reverence paid to both _sâlagrâms_ and the _tulasî_ plant will be

found in Dubois, _Hindu Manners_, &c., 3rd ed. (1906), pp. 648-51.

6. The author writes 'Himmalah'. The current spelling Himalaya is

correct, but the word should be pronounced Himâlaya. It means 'abode

of snow'.

7. The north-eastern corner of the Punjâb, an elevated valley along

the course of the Spiti or the Li river, a tributary of the Satlaj.

8. Fossils of the genus Belemnites and related genera are common,

like the ammonites, near Trichinopoly, as well as in the Himalaya.

9. This statement is not quite correct. The pebbles representing the

Linga of Siva, called Bâna-linga, or Vâna-linga, and apparently of

white quartz, which are found in the Nerbudda river, enjoy the same

distinction. 'Both are held to be of their own nature pervaded by the

special presence of the deity, and need no consecration. Offerings

made to these pebbles--such, for instance, as Bilwa leaves laid on

the white stone of Vishnu--are believed to confer extraordinary

merit' (M. Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 69).

10. In 1814-16.

11. 'Sadora' in author's text, which seems to be a misprint for

Ludora or Ludhaura.

12. The Tulasî shrub is sometimes married to an image of Krishna,

instead of to the sâlagrâma, in Western India (M. Williams,

_Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 334). Compare the account

of the marriage between the mango-tree and the jasmine, _ante_,

Chapter 5, Note [3].

13. These Hindî verses are incorrectly printed, and loosely rendered

by the author. The translation of the text, after necessary

emendation, is: 'Tulasî, oppress not the poor; evil is the lot of the

poor. From the blast of the dead hide iron becomes ashes.' Mr. W.

Crooke informs me that the verses are found in the Kabîrkî Sakhî, and

are attributable to Kabîr Dâs, rather than to Tulasî Dâs. But the

authorship of such verses is very uncertain. Mr. Crooke further

observes that the lines as given in the text do not scan, and that

the better version is:

Durbal ko na satâiye,

Jâki mâti hai;

Mûê khâl ke sâns se

Sâr bhasm ho jâe.

_Sâr_ means iron. The author was, of course, mistaken in supposing

the poet Tulasî Dâs to be a Râjâ. As usual in Hindî verse, the poet

addresses himself by name.

14. Such slight frosts are common in Bundêlkhand, especially near the

rivers, in January, but only last for a few mornings. They often

cause great damage to the more delicate crops. The weather becomes

hot in February.

15. December, 1835.

16. 'Musêl' is a very sweet-scented grass, highly esteemed as fodder.

It belongs to the genus _Anthistiria_; the species is either

_cimicina_ or _prostrata_. 'Bhawâr' is probably the 'bhaunr' of

Edgeworth's list, _Anthistiria scandens_. I cannot identify the other

grasses named in the text. The haycocks in Bundêlkhand are a pleasant

sight to English eyes. Edgeworth's list of plants found in the Bândâ

district, as revised by Messrs. Waterfield and Atkinson, is given in

_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, pp. 78-86.

CHAPTER 20

The Men-Tigers.

Râm Chand Râo, commonly called the Sarîmant, chief of Deorî,[1] here

overtook me. He came out from Sâgar to visit me at Dhamonî[2] and,

not reaching that place in time, came on after me. He held Deorî

under the Peshwâ, as the Sâgar chief held Sâgar, for the payment of

the public establishments kept up by the local administration. It

yielded him about ten thousand a year, and, when we took possession

of the country, he got an estate in the Sâgar district, in rent-free

tenure, estimated at fifteen hundred a year. This is equal to about

six thousand pounds a year in England. The tastes of native gentlemen

lead them always to expend the greater part of their incomes in the

wages of trains of followers of all descriptions, and in horses,

elephants, &c.; and labour and the subsistence of labour are about

four times cheaper in India than in England. By the breaking up of

public establishments, and consequent diminution of the local demand

for agricultural produce, the value of land throughout all Central

India, after the termination of the Mahrâtha War in 1817, fell by

degrees thirty per cent.; and, among the rest, that of my poor friend

the Sarîmant. While I had the civil charge of the Sâgar district in

1831 I represented this case of hardship; and Government, in the

spirit of liberality which has generally characterized their measures

in this part of India, made up to him the difference between what he

actually received and what they had intended to give him; and he has

ever since felt grateful to me.[3] He is a very small man, not more

than five feet high, but he has the handsomest face I have almost

ever seen, and his manners are those of the most perfect native

gentleman. He came to call upon me after breakfast, and the

conversation turned upon the number of people that had of late been

killed by tigers between Sâgar and Deorî, his ancient capital, which

lies about midway between Sâgar and the Nerbudda river.

One of his followers, who stood beside his chair, said[4] that 'when

a tiger had killed one man he was safe, for the spirit of the man

rode upon his head, and guided him from all danger. The spirit knew

very well that the tiger would be watched for many days at the place

where he had committed the homicide, and always guided him off to

some other more secure place, when he killed other men without any

risk to himself. He did not exactly know why the spirit of the man

should thus befriend the beast that had killed him; but', added he,

'there is a mischief inherent in spirits; and the better the man the

more mischievous is his ghost, if means are not taken to put him to

rest.' This is the popular and general belief throughout India; and

it is supposed that the only sure mode of destroying a tiger who has

killed many people is to begin by making offerings to the spirits of

his victims, and thereby depriving him of their valuable services.[5]

The belief that men are turned into tigers by eating of a root is no

less general throughout India.

The Sarîmant, on being asked by me what he thought of the matter,

observed 'there was no doubt much truth in what the man said: but he

was himself of opinion that the tigers which now infest the wood from

Sâgar to Deorî were of a different kind--in fact, that they were

neither more nor less than men turned into tigers--a thing which took

place in the woods of Central India much more often than people were

aware of. The only visible difference between the two', added the

Sarîmant, 'is that the metamorphosed tiger has _no tail_, while the

_bora_, or ordinary tiger, has a very long one. In the jungle about

Deorî', continued he, 'there is a root, which, if a man eat of, he is

converted into a tiger on the spot; and if, in this state, he can eat

of another, he becomes a man again--a melancholy instance of the

former of which', said he, 'occurred, I am told, in my own father's

family when I was an infant. His washerman, Raghu, was, like all

washermen, a great drunkard; and, being seized with a violent desire

to ascertain what a man felt in the state of a tiger, he went one day

to the jungle and brought home two of these roots, and desired his

wife to stand by with one of them, and the instant she saw him assume

the tiger shape, to thrust it into his mouth. She consented, the

washerman ate his root, and became instantly a tiger; but his wife

was so terrified at the sight of her husband in this shape that she

ran off with the antidote in her hand. Poor old Raghu took to the

woods, and there ate a good many of his old friends from neighbouring

villages; but he was at last shot, and recognized from the

circumstance of his _having no tail_. You may be quite sure,'

concluded Sarîmant, 'when you hear of a tiger without a tail, that it

is some unfortunate man who has eaten of that root, and of all the

tigers he will be found the most mischievous.'

How my friend had satisfied himself of the truth of this story I know

not, but he religiously believes it, and so do all his attendants and

mine; and, out of a population of thirty thousand people in the town

of Sâgar, not one would doubt the story of the washerman if he heard

it.

I was one day talking with my friend the Râjâ of Maihar.[6] on the

road between Jubbulpore and Mirzapore, on the subject of the number

of men who had been lately killed by tigers at the Katrâ Pass on that

road,[7] and the best means of removing the danger. 'Nothing', said

the Râjâ, 'could be more easy or more cheap than the destruction of

these tigers, if they were of the ordinary sort; but the tigers that

kill men by wholesale, as these do, are, you may be sure, men

themselves converted into tigers by the force of their science, and

such animals are of all the most unmanageable.'

'And how is it. Râjâ Sâhib, that these men convert themselves into

tigers?'

'Nothing', said he, 'is more easy than this to persons who have once

acquired the science; but how they learn it, or what it is, we

unlettered men know not.'

'There was once a high priest of a large temple, in this very valley

of Maihar, who was in the habit of getting himself converted into a

tiger by the force of this science, which he had thoroughly acquired.

He had a necklace, which one of his disciples used to throw over his

neck the moment the tiger's form became fully developed. He had,

however, long given up the practice, and all his old disciples had

gone off on their pilgrimages to distant shrines, when he was one day

seized with a violent desire to take his old form of the tiger. He

expressed the wish to one of his new disciples, and demanded whether

he thought he might rely on his courage to stand by and put on the

necklace. 'Assuredly you may', said the disciple; 'such is my faith

in you, and in the God we serve, that I fear nothing.' The high

priest upon this put the necklace into his hand with the requisite

instructions, and forthwith began to change his form. The disciple

stood trembling in every limb, till he heard him give a roar that

shook the whole edifice, when he fell flat upon his face, and dropped

the necklace on the floor. The tiger bounded over him, and out of the

door, and infested all the roads leading to the temple for many years

afterwards.'

'Do you think, Râjâ Sahib, that the old high priest is one of the

tigers at the Katrâ Pass?'

'No, I do not; but I think they may be all men who have become imbued

with a little too much of the high priest's _science_--when men once

acquire this science they can't help exercising it, though it be to

their own ruin, and that of others.'

'But, supposing them to be ordinary tigers, what is the simple plan

you propose to put a stop to their depredations, Râjâ Sahib?'

'I propose', said he, 'to have the spirits that guide them

propitiated by proper prayers and offerings; for the spirit of every

man or woman who has been killed by a tiger rides upon his head, or

runs before him, and tells him where to go to get prey, and to avoid

danger. Get some of the Gonds, or wild people from the jungles, who

are well skilled in these matters--give them ten or twenty rupees,

and bid them go and raise a small shrine, and there sacrifice to

these spirits. The Gonds will tell them that they shall on this

shrine have regular worship, and good sacrifices of fowls, goats, and

pigs, every year at least, if they will but relinquish their offices

with the tigers and be quiet. If this is done, I pledge myself', said

the Raja, 'that the tigers will soon get killed themselves, or cease

from killing men. If they do not, you may be quite sure that they are

not ordinary tigers, but men turned into tigers, or that the Gonds

have appropriated all you gave them to their own use, instead of

applying it to conciliate the spirits of the unfortunate people.'[8]

Notes:

1. Deorî, in the Sâgar district, about forty miles south-east of

Sâgar. In 1767, the town and attached tract called the Panj Mahâl

were bestowed by the Peshwâ, rent-free, on Dhôndo Dattâtraya, a

Marâtha pundit, ancestor of the author's friend. The Panj Mahal was

finally made part of British territory by the treaty with Sindhia in

1860, and constitutes the District called Pânch Mâhals in the

Northern Division of the Bombay Presidency. The vernacular word

_pânch_ like the Persian _panj_, means 'five'. The title Sarîmant

appears to be a popular pronunciation of the Sanskrit _srîmant_ or

_srîmân_, 'fortunate', and is still used by Marâthâ nobles.

2. _Ante_, Chapter 16, note 6. The name is here erroneously printed

'Dhamoree' in the author's text.

3. He had good reason for his gratitude, inasmuch as the depression

in rents was merely temporary.

4. An Indian chief is generally accompanied into the room by a

confidential follower, who frequently relieves his master of the

trouble of talking, and answers on his behalf all questions.

5. When Agrippina, in her rage with her son Nero, threatens to take

her stepson, Britannicus, to the camp of the Legion, and there assert

his right to the throne, she invokes the spirit of his father, whom

she had poisoned, and the manes of the Silani, whom she had murdered.

'Simul attendere manus, aggerere probra; consecratum Claudium,

infernos Silanorum manes invocare, et tot invita fari nova.'-

(Tacitus, lib, xviii, sec. 14.) [W. H. S.] The quotation is from the

_Annals_. Another reading of the concluding words is 'et tot irrita

facinora', which gives much better sense. In the author's text

'aggerere' is printed 'aggere'.

6. A small principality, detached from the Pannâ State. Its chief

town is about one hundred miles north-east of Jubbulpore, on the

route from Allahabad to Jubbulpore. The state is now traversed by the

East Indian Railway. It is under the superintendence of the Political

Agent of Baghêlkhand, resident at Rîwâ.

7. This pass is sixty-three miles south-east of Allahabad, on the

road from that city to Rîwâ.

8. These myths are based on the well-known facts that man-eating

tigers are few, and exceptionally wary and cunning. The conditions

which predispose a tiger to man-eating have been much discussed. It

seems to be established that the animals which seek human prey are

generally, though not invariably, those which, owing to old wounds or

other physical defects, are unable to attack with confidence the

stronger animals. The conversations given in the text are excellent

illustrations of the mode of formation of modern myths, and of the

kind of reasoning which satisfies the mind of the unconscious myth-

maker.

The text may be compared with the following passage from the _Journey

through the Kingdom of Oudh_ (vol. i, p. 124): 'I asked him (the Râjâ

of Balrâmpur), whether the people in the Tarâi forest were still

afraid to point out tigers to sportsmen. "I was lately out with a

party after a tiger", he said, "which had killed a cowherd, but his

companions refused to point out any trace of him, saying that their

relative's spirit must be now riding upon his head, to guide him from

all danger, and we should have no chance of shooting him. We did

shoot him, however", said the Râjâ exultingly, "and they were all

afterwards very glad of it. The tigers in the Tarâi do not often kill

men, sir, for they find plenty of deer and cattle to eat,"'

CHAPTER 21

Burning of Deorî by a Freebooter--A Suttee.

Sarîmant had been one of the few who escaped from the flames which

consumed his capital of Deorî in the month of April 1813, and were

supposed to have destroyed thirty thousand souls. I asked him to tell

me how this happened, and he referred me to his attendant, a learned

old pundit, Râm Chand, who stood by his side, as he was himself, he

said, then only five years of age, and could recollect nothing of it.

'Mardân Singh,' said the pundit, 'the father of Râjâ Arpan Singh,

whom you saw at Seorî, was then our neighbour, reigning over Garhâ

Kotâ;[1] and he had a worthless nephew, Zâlim Singh, who had

collected together an army of five thousand men, in the hope of

getting a little principality for himself in the general scramble for

dominion incident on the rise of the Pindhârîs and Amîr Khan,[2] and

the destruction of all balance of power among the great sovereigns of

Central India. He came to attack our capital, which was an emporium

of considerable trade and the seat of many useful manufactures, in

the expectation of being able to squeeze out of us a good sum to aid

him in his enterprise. While his troops blocked up every gate, fire

was, by accident, set to the fence of some man's garden within. There

had been no rain for six months; and everything was so much dried up

that the flames spread rapidly; and, though there was no wind when

they began, it soon blew a gale. The Sarîmant was then a little boy

with his mother in the fortress, where she lived with his father[3]

and nine other relations. The flames soon extended to the fortress,

and the powder-magazine blew up. The house in which they lived was

burned down, and every soul, except the lieutenant [_sic_] himself,

perished in it. His mother tried to bear him off in her arms, but

fell down in her struggle to get out with him and died. His nurse,

Tulsî Kurmin,[4] snatched him up, and ran with him outside of the

fortress to the bank of the river, where she made him over unhurt to

Harirâm, the Mârwârî merchant.[5] He was mounted on a good horse,

and, making off across the river, he carried him safely to his

friends at Gaurjhâmar; but poor Tulsî the Kurmin fell down exhausted

when she saw her charge safe, and died.

'The wind appeared to blow in upon the poor devoted city from every

side; and the troops of Zâlim Singh, who at first prevented the

people from rushing out at the gates, made off in a panic at the

horrors before them. All our establishments had been driven into the

city at the approach of Zâlim Singh's troops; and scores of

elephants, hundreds of camels, and thousands of horses and ponies

perished in the flames, besides twenty-five thousand souls. Only

about five thousand persons escaped out of thirty thousand, and these

were reduced to beggary and wretchedness by the loss of their dearest

relations and their property. At the time the flames first began to

spread, an immense crowd of people had assembled under the fortress

on the bank of the Sonâr river to see the widow of a soldier burn

herself. Her husband had been shot by one of Zâlim Singh's soldiers

in the morning; and before midday she was by the side of his body on

the funeral pile. People, as usual, begged her to tell them what

would happen, and she replied, "The city will know in less than four

hours"; in less than four hours the whole city had been reduced to

ashes; and we all concluded that, since the event was so clearly

foretold, it must have been decreed by God.'[6]

'No doubt it was,' said Sarîmant; 'how could it otherwise happen? Do

not all events depend upon His will? Had it not been His will to save

me, how could poor Tulsî the Kurmin have carried me upon her

shoulders through such a scene as this, when every other member of

our family perished?'

'No doubt', said Râm Chand, 'all these things are brought about by

the will of God, and it is not for us to ask why.'[7]

I have heard this event described by many other people, and I believe

the account of the old pundit to be a very fair one.

One day, in October 1833, the horse of the district surgeon, Doctor

Spry, as he was mounting him, reared, fell back with his head upon a

stone, and died upon the spot. The doctor was not much hurt, and the

little Sarîmant called a few days after, and offered his

congratulations upon his narrow escape. The cause of so quiet a horse

rearing at this time, when he had never been known to do so before,

was discussed; and he said that there could be no doubt that the

horse, or the doctor himself, must have seen some unlucky face before

he mounted that morning--that he had been in many places in his life,

but in none where a man was liable to see so many ugly or unfortunate

faces; and, for his part, he never left his house till an hour after

sunrise, lest he should encounter them.[8]

Many natives were present, and every one seemed to consider the

Sarîmant's explanation of the cause quite satisfactory and

philosophical. Some days after, Spry was going down to sleep in the

bungalow where the accident happened. His native assistant and all

his servants came and prayed that he would not attempt to sleep in

the bungalow, as they were sure the horse must have been frightened

by a ghost, and quoted several instances of ghosts appearing to

people there. He, however, slept in the bungalow, and, to their great

astonishment, saw no ghost and suffered no evil.[9]

Notes:

1. A fortress, twenty-five miles cast of Sâgar, captured by a

British force under General Watson in October 1818, For Seorî and

Râjâ Arjun Singh see _ante_, Chapter 17, text by notes 1 and 4.

2. Amîr Khân, a leader of predatory horse, has been justly described

as 'one of the most atrocious villains that India ever produced'. He

first came into notice in 1804, as an officer in Holkar's service,

and in the following year opposed Lord Lake at Bharatpur. A treaty

made with him in 1817 put an end to his activity. The Pindhârîs were

organized bands of mounted robbers, who desolated Northern and

Central India during the period of anarchy which followed the

dissolution of the Moghal empire. They were associated with the

Marâthâs in the war which terminated with the capture of Asîrgarh in

April 1819. In the same year the Pindhârî forces ceased to exist as a

distinct and recognized, body.

My father was an Afghân, and came from Kandahar:

He rode with Nawâb Amir Khan in the old Marâthâ war:

From the Dekhan to the Himalay, five hundred of one clan,

They asked no leave of prince or chief as they swept thro'

Hindusthan.

(Sir A. Lyall, 'The Old Pindaree'; in _Verses written in India_,

London, 1889).

3. Named Govind Râo. The proper name of the Sarîmant was Râmchand Râo

(_C.P. Gazetteer_, 1870).

4. Kurmin is the feminine of Kurmî, the name of a widely spread and

most industrious agricultural caste, closely connected, at least in

Bundêlkhand, with the similar Lodhî caste.

5. Mârwâr, or Jodhpur, is one of the leading states in Râjputâna. It

supplies the rest of India with many of the keenest merchants and

bankers.

6. See _ante_, Chapter 4, note 6, for remarks on the supposed

prophetic gifts of satî women.

7. Such feelings of resignation to the Divine will, or fate, are

common alike to Hindoos and Musalmâns.

8. 'One of a wife's duties should be to keep all bad omens out of her

husband's way, or manage to make him look at something lucky in the

early morning. . . . Different lists of inauspicious objects are

given, which, if looked upon in the early morning, might cause

disaster' (M. Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p.

397).

9. Dr. Spry died in 1842, and his estate was administered by the

author. The doctor's works are described _ante_, Chapter 14, note 16.

CHAPTER 22

Interview with the Râjâ who marries the Stone to the Shrub--Order of

the Moon and the Fish.

On the 8th,[1] after a march of twelve miles, we readied Tehrî, the

present capital of the Râjâ of Orchhâ.[2] Our road lay over an

undulating surface of soil composed of the detritus of the syenitic

rock, and poor, both from its quality and want of depth. About three

miles from our last territory we entered the boundary of the Orchhâ

Râjâ's territory, at the village of Aslôn, which has a very pretty

little fortified castle, built upon ground slightly elevated in the

midst of an open grass plain.

This, and all the villages we have lately passed, are built upon the

bare back of the syenitic rock, which seems to rise to the surface in

large but gentle swells, like the broad waves of the ocean in a calm

after a storm. A great difference appeared to me to be observable

between the minds and manners of the people among whom we were now

travelling, and those of the people of the Sâgar and Nerbudda

territories. They seemed here to want the urbanity and intelligence

we find among our subjects in the latter quarters.

The apparent stupidity of the people when questioned upon points the

most interesting to them, regarding their history, their agriculture,

their tanks, and temples, was most provoking; and their manners

seemed to me more rude and clownish than those of people in any other

part of India I had travelled over. I asked my little friend the

Sarîmant, who rode with me, what he thought of this.

'I think', said he, 'that it arises from the harsh character of the

government under which they live; it makes every man wish to appear a

fool, in order that he may be thought a beggar and not worth the

plundering.'

'It strikes me, my friend Sarîmant, that their government has made

them in reality the beggars and the fools that they appear to be.'

'God only knows', said Sarîmant; 'certain it is that they are neither

in mind nor in manners what the people of our districts are.'

The Râjâ had no notice of our approach till intimation of it reached

him at Ludhaura, the day before we came in. He was there resting, and

dismissing the people after the ceremonies of the marriage between

the Salagrâm and the Tulasî. Ludhaura is twenty-seven miles north-

west of Tehrî, on the opposite side from that on which I was

approaching. He sent off two men on camels with a 'kharîtâ'

(letter),[3] requesting that I would let him know my movements, and

arrange a meeting in a manner that might prevent his appearing

wanting in respect and hospitality; that is, in plain terms, which he

was too polite to use, that I would consent to remain one stage from

his capital, till he could return and meet me half-way, with all due

pomp and ceremony. These men reached me at Bamhaurî,[4] a distance of

thirty-nine miles, in the evening, and I sent back a kharîtâ, which

reached him by relays of camels before midnight. He set out for his

capital to receive me, and, as I would not wait to be met half-way in

due form, he reached his palace, and we reached our tents at the same

time, under a salute from his two brass field-pieces.

We halted at Tehrî on the 9th, and about eleven o'clock the Râjâ came

to pay his visit of congratulation, with a magnificent _cortège_ of

elephants, camels, and horses, all mounted and splendidly

caparisoned, and the noise of his band was deafening. I had had both

my tents pitched, and one of them handsomely fitted up, as it always

is, for occasions of ceremony like the present. He came to within

twenty paces of the door on his elephant, and from its back, as it

sat down, he entered his splendid litter, without alighting on the

ground.[5] In this vehicle he was brought to my tent door, where I

received him, and, after the usual embraces, conducted him up through

two rows of chairs, placed for his followers of distinction and my

own, who are always anxious to assist in ceremonies like these.

At the head of this lane we sat upon chairs placed across, and

facing down the middle of the two rows; and we conversed upon all the

subjects usually introduced on such occasions, but more especially

upon the august ceremonies of the marriage of the Salagrâm with the

Tulasî, in which his highness had been so _piously_ engaged at

Ludhaura.[6] After he had sat with me an hour and a half he took his

leave, and I conducted him to the door, whence he was carried to his

elephant in his litter, from which he mounted without touching the

ground.

This litter is called a 'nâlkî'. It is one of the three great

insignia which the Mogul Emperors of Delhi conferred upon independent

princes of the first class, and could never be used by any person

upon whom, or upon whose ancestors, they had not been so conferred.

These were the nâlkî, the order of the Fish, and the fan of the

peacock's feathers. These insignia could be used only by the prince

who inherited the sovereignty of the one on whom they had been

originally conferred. The order of the Fish, or Mahî Marâtib, was

first instituted by Khusrû Parvîz, King of Persia, and grandson of

the celebrated Naushîrvân the Just. Having been deposed by his

general, Bahrâm, Khusrû fled for protection to the Greek emperor,

Maurice, whose daughter, Shîrîn, he married, and he was sent back to

Persia, with an army under the command of Narses, who placed him on

the throne of his ancestors in the year A.D. 591.[7] He ascertained

from his astrologer, Araz Khushasp, that when he ascended the throne

the moon was in the constellation of the Fish, and he gave orders to

have two balls made of polished steel, which were to be called

Kaukabas (planets),[8] and mounted on long poles. These two planets,

with large fish made of gold, upon a third pole in the centre, were

ordered to be carried in all regal processions immediately after the

king, and before the prime minister, whose _cortège_ always followed

immediately after that of the king. The two kaûkabas are now

generally made of copper, and plated, and in the shape of a jar,

instead of quite round as at first; but the fish is still made of

gold. Two planets are always considered necessary to one fish, and

they are still carried in all processions between the prince and his

prime minister.

The court of this prince Khusrû Pârvîz was celebrated throughout the

East for its splendour and magnificence; and the chaste love of the

poet Farhad for his beautiful queen Shîrîn is the theme of almost as

many poems in the East as that of Petrarch's for Laura is in the

West. Nûh Samânî, who ascended the throne of Persia after the

Sassanians,[9] ascertained that the moon was in the sign Leo at the

time of his accession, and ordered that the gold head of a lion

should thenceforward accompany the fishes, and the two balls, in all

royal processions. The Persian order of knighthood is, therefore,

that of the Fish, the Moon, and the Lion, and not the Lion and Sun,

as generally supposed. The emperors of the house of Taimûr in

Hindustan assumed the right of conferring the order upon all whom

they pleased, and they conferred it upon the great territorial

sovereigns of the country without distinction as to religion. He only

who inherits the sovereignty can wear the order, and I believe no

prince would venture to wear or carry the order who was not generally

reputed to have received the investiture from one of the emperors of

Delhi.[10]

As I could not wait another day, it was determined that I should

return his visit in the afternoon; and about four o'clock we set out

upon our elephant--Lieutenant Thomas, Sarîmant, and myself, attended

by all my troopers and those of Sarîmant. We had our silver-stick men

with us; but still all made a sorry figure compared with the splendid

_cortège_ of the Râjâ. We dismounted at the foot of the stairs

leading to the Râjâ's hall of audience, and were there met by his two

chief officers of state, who conducted us to the entrance of the

hall, when we were received by the Râjâ himself, who led us up

through two rows of chairs laid out exactly as mine had been in the

morning. In front were assembled a party of native comedians, who

exhibited a few scenes of the insolence of office in the attendants

of great men, and the obtrusive importunity of place-seekers, in a

manner that pleased us much more than a dance would have done.

Conversation was kept up very well, and the visit passed off without

any feeling of ennui, or anything whatever to recollect with regret.

The ladies looked at us from their apartments through gratings, and

without our being able to see them very distinctly. We were anxious

to see the tombs of the late Râjâ, the elder brother of the present,

who lately died, and that of his son, which are in progress in a very

fine garden outside the city walls, and, in consequence, we did not

sit above half an hour. The Râjâ conducted us to the head of the

stairs, and the same two officers attended us to the bottom, and

mounted their horses, and attended us to the tombs.

After the dust of the town raised by the immense crowd that attended

us, and the ceremonies of the day, a walk in this beautiful garden

was very agreeable, and I prolonged it till dark. The Râjâ had given

orders to have all the cisterns filled during our stay, under the

impression that we should wish to see the garden; and, as soon as we

entered, the _jets d'eau_ poured into the air their little floods

from a hundred mouths. Our old cicerone told us that, if we would

take the old capital of Orchhâ in our way, we might there see the

thing in perfection, and amidst the deluges of the rains of Sâwân and

Bhâdon (July and August) see the lightning and hear the thunder. The

Râjâs of this, the oldest principality in Bundêlkhand, were all

formerly buried or burned at the old capital of Orchhâ, even after

they had changed their residence to Tehrî. These tombs over the ashes

of the Râjâ, his wife, and son, are the first that have been built at

Tehrî, where their posterity are all to repose in future.

Notes:

1. December, 1835.

2. The State of Orchhâ, also known as Tehrî or Tîkamgarh, situated to

the south of the Jhânsî district, is the oldest and the highest in

rank of the Bundela principalities. The town of Tehrî is seventy-two

miles north-west of Sâgar. The town of Orchhâ, founded in A.D. 1531,

is 131 miles north of Sâgar, and about forty miles from Tehrî.

Tîkamgarh is the fort of Tehrî.

3. A _kharîtâ_ is a letter enclosed in a bag of rich brocade,

contained in another of fine muslin. The mouth is tied with a string

of silk, to which hangs suspended the great seal, which is a flat

round mass of sealing-wax, with the seal impressed on each side of

it. This is the kind of letter which passes between natives of great

rank in India, and between them and the public functionaries of

Government. [W. H. S.]

4. _Ante_, Chapter 19, after note [15].

5. The Râjâ's unwillingness to touch the ground is an example of a

very widespread and primitive belief. 'Two of those rules or taboos

by which . . . the life of divine kings or priests is regulated. The

first is . . . that the divine personage may not touch the ground

with his foot.' This prohibition applies to the Mikado of Japan and

many other sacred personages. 'The second rule is that the sun may

not shine upon the sacred person.' This second rule explains the use

of the umbrella as a royal appendage in India and Burma. (Frazer,

_The Golden Bough_, 1st ed., vol. ii, pp. 224, 225.)

6 _Ante_, Chapter 19, note 3.

7. During the time he remained the guest of the emperor he resided at

Hierapolis, and did not visit Constantinople. The Greeks do not admit

that Shîrîn was the daughter of Maurice, though a Roman by birth and

a Christian by religion. The Persians and Turks speak of her as the

emperor's daughter. [W. H. S.] Khusrû Pârvîz (Eberwiz), or Khusrû II,

reigned as King of Persia from A.D. 591 to 628. In the course of his

wars he took Jerusalem, and reduced Egypt, and a large part of

northern Africa, extending for a time the bounds of the Persian

empire to the Aegean and the Nile. Khusrû I, surnamed Naushîrvân, or

(more correctly) Anushîrvân, reigned from A.D. 531 to 579. His

successful wars with the Romans and his vigorous internal

administration captivated the Oriental imagination, and he is

generally spoken of as Âdil, or The Just. His name has become

proverbial, and to describe a superior as rivalling Naushîrvân in

justice is a commonplace of flattery. The prophet Muhammad was born

during his reign, and was proud of the fact. The alleged expedition

of Naushîrvân into India is discredited by the best modern writers.

Gibbon tells the story of the wars between the two Khusrûs and the

Romans in his forty-sixth chapter, and a critical history of the

reigns of both Khusrû (Khosrau) I and Khusrû II will be found in

Professor Rawlinson's _Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy_ (London,

1876). European authors have, until recently, generally written the

name Khusrû in its Greek form as Chosroes. The name of Shîrîn is also

written Sira.

'With the name of Shirin and the rock of Bahistun the Persians have

associated one of those poetic romances so dear to the national

genius. Ferhad, the most famous sculptor of his time, who was very

likely employed by Chosroes II to execute these bas-reliefs, is said

in the legend to have fallen madly in love with Shîrîn, and to have

received a promise of her from the king, if he would cut through the

rock of Behistun, and divert a stream to the Kermanshah plain. The

lover set to work, and had all but completed his gigantic enterprise

(of which the remains, however interpreted, are still to be seen),

when he was falsely informed by an emissary from the king of his

lady's death. In despair he leaped from the rock, and was dashed to

pieces. The legend of the unhappy lover is familiar throughout the

East, and is used to explain many traces of rock-cutting or

excavation as far east as Beluchistan' (_Persia and the Persian

Question_, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P. (London, 1892), vol. i,

p. 562, note. See also Malcolm, _History of Persia_, vol. i, p. 129).

8. _Kaukab_ in Arabic means 'a star'. Steingass (_Persian

Dictionary_) defines _Kaukaba_ as 'a polished steel ball suspended to

a long pole, and carried as an ensign before the king; a star of

gold, silver, or tinsel, worn as ornament or sign of rank; a

concourse of people; a royal train, retinue, cavalcade; splendour'.

9. Yezdegird III (Isdigerd), the last of the Sassanians, was defeated

in A.D. 641 at the battle of Nahavend by the Arab Nomân, general of

the Khalîf Omar, and driven from his throne. The supremacy of the

Khalîfs over Persia lasted till A.D. 1258. The subordinate Samâni

dynasty ruled over Khurâsân, Seistân, Balkh, and the countries of

Trans-Oxiana in the tenth century. Two of the princes of this line

were named Nûh, or Noah. The author probably refers to the better

known of the two, Amir Nûh II (Malcolm, _History of Persia_, ed.

1829, vol. i, pp. 158-66).

10. The poor old blind emperor. Shâh Alam, when delivered from the

Marâthâs in 1803 by Lord Lake, did all he could to show his gratitude

by conferring on his deliverer honours and titles, and among them the

'Mahî Maratîb'. The editor has been unable to discover the source of

the author's story of the origin of the Persian order of knighthood.

Malcolm, an excellent authority, gives the following very different

account: 'Their sovereigns have, for many centuries, preserved as the

peculiar arms of the country,[e] the sign or figure of Sol in the

constellation of Leo; and this device, a lion couchant and the sun

rising at his back, has not only been sculptured upon their

palaces[f] and embroidered upon their banners.[g] but has been

converted into an Order,[h] which in the form of gold and silver

medals, has been given to such as have distinguished themselves

against the enemies of their country.[i]

_Note e_. The causes which led to the sign of Sol in Leo becoming the

arms of Persia cannot be distinctly traced, but there is reason to

believe that the use of this symbol is not of very great antiquity.

We meet with it upon the coins of one of the Seljukian princes of

Iconium; and, when this family had been destroyed by Hulâkû [A.D.

1258], the grandson of Chengiz, that prince, or his successors,

perhaps adopted this emblem as a trophy of their conquest, whence it

has remained ever since among the most remarkable of the royal

insignia. A learned friend, who has a valuable collection of Oriental

coins, and whose information and opinion have enabled me to make this

conjecture, believes that the emblematical representation of Sol in

Leo was first adopted by Ghiâs-ud-din Kai Khusrû bin Kaikobâd, who

began to reign A.H. 634, A.D. 1236, and died A.H. 642, A.D. 1244; and

this emblem, he adds, is supposed to have reference either to his own

horoscope or to that of his queen, who was a princess of Georgia.

_Note f_. Hanway states, vol. i, p. 199, that over the gate which

forms the entrance of the palace built by Shah Abbâs the Great [A.D.

1586 to 1628] at Ashrâf, in Mazenderan, are 'the arms of Persia,

being a lion, and the sun rising behind it'.

_Note g_. The emblem of the Lion and Sun is upon all the banners

given to the regular corps of infantry lately formed. They are

presented to the regiments with great ceremony. A mûllâ, or priest,

attends, and implores the divine blessing on them.

_Note h_. This order, with additional decorations, has been lately

conferred upon several ministers and representatives of European

Governments in alliance with Persia.

_Note i_. The medals which have been struck with this symbol upon

them have been chiefly given to the Persian officers and men of the

regular corps who have distinguished themselves in the war with the

Russians. An English officer, who served with these troops, informs

me that those on whom these medals have been conferred are very proud

of this distinction, and that all are extremely anxious to obtain

them (_History of Persia_, ed. 1829, vol. ii, p. 406).

In Curzon's figure the lion is standing, not 'couchant', as stated by

Malcolm, and grasps a scimitar in his off forepaw.

CHAPTER 23

The Râjâ of Orchhâ--Murder of his many Ministers.

The present Râjâ, Mathurâ Dâs, succeeded his brother Bikramâjît, who

died in 1834. He had made over the government to his only son, Râjâ

Bahâdur, whom he almost adored; but, the young man dying some years

before him, the father resumed the reins of government, and held them

till his death. He was a man of considerable capacity, but of a harsh

and unscrupulous character. His son resembled him; but the present

Râjâ is a man of mild temper and disposition, though of weak

intellect. The fate of the last three prime ministers will show the

character of the Râjâ and his son, and the nature of their rule.

The minister at the time the old man made over the reins of

government to his son was Khânjû Purôhit.[1] Wishing to get rid of

him a few years after, this son, Râjâ Bahâdur, employed Muhram Singh,

one of his feudal Râjpût barons, to assassinate him. As a reward for

this service he received the seals of office; and the Râjâ

confiscated all the property of the deceased, amounting to four lakhs

of rupees[2] and resumed the whole of the estates held by the family.

The young Râjâ died soon after; and his father, when he resumed the

reins of government, wishing to remove the new minister, got him

assassinated by Gambhîr Singh, another feudal Râjpût baron, who, as

his reward, received in his turn the seals of office. This man was a

most atrocious villain, and employed the public establishments of his

chief to plunder travellers on the high road. In 1833 his followers

robbed four men, who were carrying treasure to the amount of ten

thousand rupees from Sâgar to Jhânsî through Tehrî, and intended to

murder them; but, by the sagacity of one of the party, and a lucky

accident, they escaped, made their way back to Sâgar, and complained

to the magistrate.[3] The[4] minister discovered the nature of their

burdens as they lodged at Tehrî on their way, and sent after them a

party of soldiers, with orders to put them in the bed of a rivulet

that separated the territory of Orchhâ from that of the Jhânsî Râjâ.

One of the treasure party discovered their object; and, on reaching

the bank of the rivulet in a deep grass jungle, he threw down his

bundle, dashed unperceived through the grass, and reached a party of

travellers whom he saw ascending a hill about half a mile in advance.

The myrmidons of the minister, when they found that one had escaped,

were afraid to murder the others, but took their treasure. In spite

of great obstacles, and with much danger to the families of three of

those men, who resided in the capital of Tehrî, the magistrate of

Sâgar brought the crime home to the minister, and the Râjâ, anxious

to avail himself of the occasion to fill his coffers, got him

assassinated. The Râjâ was then about eighty years of age, and his

minister was a strong, athletic, and brave man. One morning while he

was sitting with him in private conversation, the former pretended a

wish to drink some of the water in which his household god had been

washed (the 'chandan mirt'),[5] and begged the minister to go and

fetch it from the place where it stood by the side of the idol in the

court of the palace. As a man cannot take his sword before the idol,

the minister put it down, as the Râjâ knew he would, and going to the

idol, prostrated himself before it preparatory to taking away the

water. In that state he was cut down by Bihârî,[6] another feudal

Râjpût baron, who aspired to the seals, and some of his friends, who

had been placed there on purpose by the Râjâ. He obtained the seals

by his service, and, as he was allowed to place one brother in

command of the forces, and to make another chamberlain, he hoped to

retain them longer than any of his predecessors had done. Gambhîr

Singh's brother, Jhujhâr Singh, and the husband of his sister,

hearing of his murder, made off, but were soon pursued and put to

death. The widows were all three put into prison, and all the

property and estates were confiscated. The movable property amounted

to three lakhs of rupees.[7] The Râjâ boasted to the Governor-

General's representative in Bundêlkhand of this act of retributive

justice, and pretended that it was executed merely as a punishment

for the robbery; but it was with infinite difficulty the merchants

could recover from him any share of the plundered property out of

that confiscated. The Râjâ alleged that, according to our _rules_,

the chief within whose boundary the robbery might have been

committed, was obliged to make good the property. On inspection, it

was found that the robbery was perpetrated upon the very boundary

line, and 'in spite of pride, in erring reason's spite', the Jhânsî

Râjâ was made to pay one-half of the plundered treasure.

The old Râjâ, Bikramâjît, died in June, 1834; and, though his death

had been some time expected, he no sooner breathed his last than

charges of 'dînaî', slow poison, were got up, as usual, in the zenana

(seraglio).

Here the widow of Râjâ Bahâdur, a violent and sanguinary woman, was

supreme; and she persuaded the present Râjâ, a weak old man, to take

advantage of the funeral ceremonies to avenge the death of his

brother. He did so; and Bihârî, and his three brothers, with above

fifty of his relations, were murdered. The widows of the four

brothers were the only members of all the families left alive. One of

them had a son four months old; another one of two years; the four

brothers had no other children. Immediately after the death of their

husbands, the two children were snatched from their mothers' breasts,

and threatened with instant death unless their mothers pointed out

all their ornaments and other property. They did so; and the spoilers

having got from them property to the amount of one hundred and fifty

thousand rupees, and been assured that there was no more, threw the

children over the high wall, by which they were dashed to pieces. The

poor widows were tendered as wives to four sweepers, the lowest of

all low castes; but the tribe of sweepers would not suffer any of its

members to take the widows of men of such high caste and station as

wives, notwithstanding the tempting offer of five hundred rupees as a

present, and a village in rent-free tenure.[8] I secured a promise

while at Tehrî that these poor widows should be provided for, as they

had, up to that time, been preserved by the good feeling of a little

community of the lowest of castes, on whom they had been bestowed as

a punishment worse than death, inasmuch as it would disgrace the

whole class to which they belonged, the Parihâr Râjpûts.[9]

Tehrî is a wretched town, without one respectable dwelling-house

tenanted beyond the palace, or one merchant, or even shopkeeper of

capital and credit. There are some tolerable houses unoccupied and in

ruins; and there are a few neat temples built as tombs, or cenotaphs,

in or around the city, if city it can be called. The stables and

accommodations for all public establishments seem to be all in the

same ruinous state as the dwelling-houses. The revenues of the state

are spent in feeding Brahmans and religious mendicants of all kinds;

and in such idle ceremonies as those at which the Râjâ and all his

court have just been assisting--ceremonies which concentrate for a

few days the most useless of the people of India, the devotee

followers (Bairâgîs) of the god Vishnu, and tend to no purpose,

either useful or ornamental, to the state or to the people.

This marriage of a stone to a shrub, which takes place every year, is

supposed to cost the Râjâ, at the most moderate estimate, three lakhs

of rupees a year, or one-fourth of his annual revenue.[10] The

highest officers of which his government is composed receive small

beggarly salaries, hardly more than sufficient for their subsistence;

and the money they make by indirect means they dare not spend like

gentlemen, lest the Râjâ might be tempted to take their lives in

order to get hold of it. All his feudal barons are of the same tribe

as himself, that is, Râjpûts; but they are divided into three clans--

Bundêlas, Pawârs, and Chandêls. A Bundêla cannot marry a woman of his

own clan, he must take a wife from the Pawârs or Chandêls; and so of

the other two clans--no member of one can take a wife from his own

clan, but must go to one of the other two for her. They are very much

disposed to fight with each other, but not less are they disposed to

unite against any third party, not of the same tribe. Braver men do

not, I believe, exist than the Râjpûts of Bundêlkhand, who all carry

their swords from their infancy.[11]

It may be said of the Râjpûts of Mâlwa and Central India generally,

that the Mogul Emperors of Delhi made the same use of them that the

Emperors of Germany and the Popes made of the military chiefs and

classes of Europe during the Middle Ages. Industry and the peaceful

arts being reduced to agriculture alone under bad government or no

government at all, the land remained the only thing worth

appropriating; and it accordingly became appropriated by those alone

who had the power to do so--by the Hindoo military classes collected

around the heads of their clans, and powerful in their union. These

held it under the paramount power on the feudal tenure of military

service, as militia; or it was appropriated by the paramount power

itself, who let it out on allodial tenure to peaceful peasantry. The

one was the Zamîndârî, and the other the Mâlguzârî tenure of

India.[12]

The military chiefs, essentially either soldiers or robbers, were

continually fighting, either against each other, or against the

peasantry, or public officers of the paramount power, like the barons

of Europe; and that paramount power, or its delegates, often found

that the easiest way to crush one of these refractory vassals was to

put him, as such men had been put in Germany, to _the ban of the

empire_, and offer his lands, his castles, and his wealth to the

victor. This victor brought his own clansmen to occupy the lands and

castles of the vanquished; and, as these were the only things thought

worth living for, the change commonly involved the utter destruction

of the former occupants. The new possessors gave the name of their

leader, their clan, or their former place of abode, to their new

possession, and the tract of country over which they spread. Thus

were founded the Bundêlas, Pawârs, and Chandêls [_sic_] upon the ruin

of the Chandêls of Bundêlkhand, the Baghêlas in Baghêlkhand, or Rîwâ,

the Kachhwâhâs, the Sakarwârs, and others along the Chambal river,

and throughout all parts of India.[13]

These classes have never learnt anything, or considered anything

worth learning, but the use of the sword; and a Râjpût chief, next to

leading a gang of his own on great enterprises, delights in nothing

so much as having a gang or two under his patronage for little ones.

There is hardly a single chief of the Hindoo military class in the

Bundêlkhand or Gwâlior territories, who does not keep a gang of

robbers of some kind or other, and consider it as a very valuable and

legitimate source of revenue; or who would not embrace with

cordiality the leader of a gang of assassins by profession who should

bring him home from every expedition a good horse, a good sword, or a

valuable pair of shawls, taken from their victims. It is much the

same in the kingdom of Oudh, where the lands are for the most part

held by the same Hindoo military classes, who are in a continual

state of war with each other, or with the Government authorities.

Three-fourths of the recruits for native infantry regiments are from

this class of military agriculturists of Oudh, who have been trained

up in this school of contest; and many of the lads, when they enter

our ranks, are found to have marks of the cold steel upon their

persons. A braver set of men is hardly anywhere to be found; or one

trained up with finer feelings of devotion towards the power whose

salt they eat.[14] A good many of the other fourth of the recruits

for our native infantry are drawn from among the Ujainî Râjpûts, or

Râjpûts from Ujain,[15] who were established many generations ago in

the same manner at Bhôjpur on the bank of the Ganges.[16]

Notes:

1. A purôhit is a Brahman family priest.

2. Four hundred thousand rupees, worth at that time more than forty

thousand pounds sterling.

3. The magistrate was the author.

4. 'That' in author's text.

5. The water of the Ganges, with which the image of the god Vishnu

has been washed, is considered a very holy draught, fit for princes.

That with which the image of the god Siva, alias Mahâdêo, is washed

must not be drunk. The popular belief is that in a dispute between

him and his wife, Pârvatî, alias Kâlî, she cursed the person that

should thenceforward dare to drink of the water that flowed over his

images on earth. The river Ganges is supposed to flow from the top-

knot of Siva's head, and no one would drink of it after this curse,

were it not that the sacred stream is supposed to come first from the

_heel_ of Vishnu, the Preserver. All the little images of Siva, that

are made out of stones taken from the bed of the Nerbudda river, are

supposed to be absolved from this curse, and water thrown upon _them_

can be drunk with impunity. [W. H. S.] The natural emblems of Siva,

the Bâna-linga quartz pebbles found in the Nerbudda, have already

been referred to in the note to Chapter 19, _ante_, note 9. In the

Marâthâ country the 'household gods' generally comprise five sacred

symbols, namely, the _sâlagrâma_ stone of Vishnu, the _bâna-linga_ of

Siva, a metallic stone representing the female principle in nature

(Sakti), a crystal representing the sun, and a red stone representing

Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. The details of the tiresome ritual

observed in the worship of these objects occupy pp. 412 to 416 of

Monier Williams's _Religious Thought and Life in India_.

6. 'Beearee' in author's text.

7. Then worth more than thirty thousand pounds sterling.

8. On the customs of the sweeper caste, see _ante_, Chapter 8,

following note [11].

9. The Parihârs were the rulers of Bundêlkhand before the Chandêls.

The chief of Uchhahara belongs to this clan.

10. Wealthy Hindoos, throughout India, spend money in the same

ceremonies of marrying the stone to the shrub. [W. H. S.] Three lakhs

of rupees were then worth thirty thousand pounds sterling or more.

11. The numerous clans, more or less devoted to war, grouped together

under the name of Râjpûts (literally 'king's sons'), are in reality

of multifarious origin, and include representatives of many races.

They are the Kshatriyas of the law-books, and are still often called

Chhattrî (_E.H.I._, 3rd ed., pp. 407-15). In some parts of the

country the word Thâkur is more familiar as their general title.

Thirty-six clans are considered as specially pure-blooded and are

called, at any rate in books, the 'royal races'. All the clans follow

the custom of exogamy. The Chandêls (Chandella) ruled Bundêlkhand

from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. Their capital was Mahoba,

now a station on the Midland Railway. The Bundêlas became prominent

at a later date, and attained their greatest power under Chhatarsâl

(_circa_ A.D. 1671-1731). Their territory is now known as

Bundêlkhand. The country so designated is not an administrative

division. It is partly in the United Provinces, partly in the Central

Provinces, and partly in Native States. It is bounded on the north by

the Jumna; on the north and west by the Chambal river; on the south

by the Central Provinces, and on the south and east by Rîwâ and the

Kaimûr hills. The traditions of both the Bundêlas and Chandellas show

that there is a strain of the blood of the earlier, so--called

aboriginal, races in both clans. The Pawâr (Pramara) clan ranks high,

but is now of little political importance (See _N.W.P. Gazetteer_,

1st ed., vol. vii, p. 68).

12. The paramount power often assigned a portion of its reserved

lands in 'Jâgîr' to public officers for the establishments they

required for the performance of the duties, military or civil, which

were expected from them. Other portions were assigned in rent-free

tenure for services already performed, or to favourites; but, in both

cases, the rights of the village or land owner, or allodial

proprietors, were supposed to be unaffected, as the Government was

presumed to assign only its own claim to a certain portion as

revenue. [W. H. S.] The term 'ryotwar' (raiyatwâr) is commonly used

to designate the system under which the cultivators hold their lands

direct from the State. The subject of tenures is further discussed by

the author in Chapters 70, 71.

13. For elaborate comparisons between the Râjpût policy and the

feudal system of Europe, Tod's _Rajasthân_ may be consulted. The

parallel is not really so close as it appears to be at first sight.

In some respects the organization of the Highland clans is more

similar to that of the Râjpûts than the feudal system is. The Chambal

river rises in Mâlwâ, and, after a course of some five hundred and

seventy miles, falls into the Jumna forty miles below Etâwa. The

statement in the text concerning the succession of clans is confused.

The ruling family of Rîwâ still belongs to the Baghêl clan. The

Maharâjâ of Jaipur (Jeypore) is a Kachhwâha.

14. The barbarous habit of alliance and connivance with robber gangs

is by no means confined to Râjpût nobles and landholders. Men of all

creeds and castes yield to the temptation and magistrates are

sometimes startled to find that Honorary Magistrates, Members of

District Boards, and others of apparently the highest respectability,

are the abettors and secret organizers of robber bands. A modern

example of this fact was discovered in the Meerut and Muzaffarnagar

Districts of the United Provinces in 1890 and 1891. In this case the

wealthy supporters of the banditti were Jâts and Muhammadans.

The unfortunate condition of Oudh previous to the annexation in 1856

is vividly described in the author's _Journey through the Kingdom of

Oude_, published in 1858. The tour took place in 1849-50. Some

districts of the kingdom, especially Hardoî, are still tainted by the

old lawlessness.

The remarks on the fine feelings of devotion shown by the sepoys must

now be read in the light of the events of the Mutiny. Since that time

the army has been reorganized, and depends on Oudh for its recruits

much less than it did in the author's day.

15. Ujain (Ujjain, Oojeyn) is a very ancient city, on the river

Sipra, in Mâlwa, in the dominions of Sindhia, the chief of Gwâlior.

16. Bhajpore in the author's text. The town referred to is Bhôjpur in

the Shâhâbâd district of South Bihâr.

CHAPTER 24

Corn Dealers--Scarcities--Famines in India.

Near Tehrî we saw the people irrigating a field of wheat from a tank

by means of a canoe, in a mode quite new to me. The surface of the

water was about three feet below that of the field to be watered. The

inner end of the canoe was open, and placed to the mouth of a gutter

leading into the wheat-field. The outer end was closed, and suspended

by a rope to the outer end of a pole, which was again suspended to

cross-bars. On the inner end of this pole was fixed a weight of

stones sufficient to raise the canoe when filled with water; and at

the outer end stood five men, who pulled down and sank the canoe into

the water as often as it was raised by the stones, and emptied into

the gutter. The canoe was more curved at the outer end than ordinary

canoes are, and seemed to have been made for the purpose. The lands

round the town generally were watered by the Persian wheel; but,

where it [_scil._ the water] is near the surface, this [_scil._ the

canoe arrangement] I should think a better method.[1]

On the 10th[2] we came on to the village of Bilgaî, twelve miles over

a bad soil, badly cultivated; the hard syenitic rock rising either

above or near to the surface all the way--in some places abruptly, in

small hills, decomposing into large rounded boulders--in others

slightly and gently, like the backs of whales in the ocean-in others,

the whole surface of the country resembled very much the face of the

sea, not after, but really in, a storm, full of waves of all sizes,

contending with each other 'in most admired disorder'. After the dust

of Tehrî, and the fatiguing ceremonies of its court, the quiet

morning I spent in this secluded spot under the shade of some

beautiful trees, with the surviving canary singing, my boy playing,

and my wife sleeping off the fatigues of her journey, was to me most

delightful. Henry was extremely ill when we left Jubbulpore; but the

change of air, and all the other changes incident to a march, have

restored him to health.

During the scarcity of 1833 two hundred people died of starvation in

this village alone;[3] and were all thrown into one large well, which

has, of course, ever since remained closed. Autumn crops chiefly are

cultivated; and they depend entirely on the sky for water, while the

poor people of the village depend upon the returns of a single season

for subsistence during the whole year. They lingered on in the hope

of aid from above till the greater part had become too weak from want

of food to emigrate. The Râjâ gave half a crown to every family;[4]

but this served merely to kindle their hopes of more, and to prolong

their misery. Till the people have a better government they can never

be secure from frequent returns of similar calamities. Such security

must depend upon a greater variety of crops, and better means of

irrigation; better roads to bring supplies over from distant parts

which have not suffered from the same calamities; and greater means

in reserve of paying for such supplies when brought--things that can

never be hoped for under a government like this, which allows no man

the free enjoyment of property.

Close to the village a large wall has been made to unite two small

hills, and form a small lake; but the wall is formed of the rounded

boulders of the syenitic rock without cement, and does not retain the

water. The land which was to have formed the bed of the lake is all

in tillage; and I had some conversation with the man who cultivated

it. He told me that the wall had been built with the money of _sin_,

and not the money of _piety_ (_pâp kê paisâ sê, na pun kê paisâ sê

banâ_), that the man who built it must have laid out his money with a

_worldly_, and not a _religious_ mind (_nîyat_); that on such

occasions men generally assembled Brahmans and other deserving

people, and fed and clothed them, and thereby _consecrated_ a great

work, and made it acceptable to God, and he had heard from his

ancestors that the man who had built this wall had failed to do this;

that the construction could never, of course, answer the purpose for

which it was intended--and that the builder's name had actually been

forgotten, and the work did him no good either in this world or the

next. This village, which a year or two ago was large and populous,

is now reduced to two wretched huts inhabited by two very miserable

families.

Bundêlkhand suffers more often and more severely from the want of

seasonable showers of rain than any other part of India; while the

province of Mâlwa, which adjoins it on the west and south, hardly

ever suffers at all.[5] There is a couplet, which, like all other

good couplets on rural subjects, is attributed to Sahdêo [Sahadeva],

one of the five demigod brothers of the Mahâbhârata, to this effect:

'If you hear not the thunder on such a night, you, father, go to

Mâlwa, I to Gujarât;'--that is, there will be no rain, and we must

seek subsistence where rains never fail, and the harvests are secure.

The province of Mâlwa is well studded with hills and groves of fine

trees, which intercept the clouds as they are wafted by the

prevailing westerly winds, from the Gulf of Cambay to the valley of

the Ganges, and make them drop their contents upon a soil of great

natural powers, formed chiefly from the detritus of the decomposing

basaltic rocks, which cap and intersect these hills.[6]

During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain of

every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large streams from

this favoured province towards Bundêlkhand; and the population of

Bundêlkhand, as usual in such times of dearth and scarcity, flowed

off towards Mâlwa against the stream of supply, under the assurance

that the nearer they got to the source, the greater would be their

chance of employment and subsistence. Every village had its numbers

of the dead and the dying; and the roads were all strewed with them;

but they were mostly concentrated upon the great towns and civil and

military stations, where subscriptions were open[ed] for their

support, by both the European and native communities. The funds

arising from these subscriptions lasted till the rains had set fairly

in, when all able-bodied persons could easily find employment in

tillage among the agricultural communities of villages around. After

the rains have fairly set in, the _sick_ and _helpless_ only should

be kept concentrated upon large towns and stations, where little or

no employment is to be found; for the oldest and youngest of those

who are able to work can then easily find employment in weeding the

cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and other fields under autumn crops, and in

preparing the lands for the reception of the wheat, gram,[7] and

other spring seeds; and get advances from the farmers, agricultural

capitalists[8] and other members of the village communities, who are

all glad to share their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay

liberally for the little service they are able to give in return.

It is very unwise to give from such funds what may be considered a

full rate of subsistence to able-bodied persons, as it tends to keep

concentrated upon such points vast numbers who would otherwise be

scattered over the surface of the country among the village

communities, who would be glad to advance them stock and the means of

subsistence upon the pledge of their future services when the season

of tillage commences. The rate of subsistence should always be

something less than what the able-bodied person usually consumes, and

can get for his labour in the field. For the sick and feeble this

rate will be enough, and the healthy and able-bodied, with unimpaired

appetites, will seek a greater rate by the offer of their services

among the farmers and cultivators of the surrounding country. By this

precaution, the mass of suffering will be gradually diffused over the

country, so as best to receive what the country can afford to give

for its relief. As soon as the rains set in, all the able-bodied men,

women, and children should be sent off with each a good blanket, and

a rupee or two, as the funds can afford, to last them till they can

engage themselves with the farmers. Not a farthing after that day

should be given out, except to the feeble and sick, who may be

considered as hospital patients.[9]

At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated, the

scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for, in spite of the best

dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of Government and its

officers, and the European and native communities, thousands commonly

die of starvation. At Sâgar, mothers, as they lay in the streets

unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants, and imploring the

passing stranger to take them in slavery, that they might at least

live--hundreds were seen creeping into gardens, courtyards, and old

ruins, concealing themselves under shrubs, grass, mats, or straw,

where they might die quietly, without having their bodies torn by

birds and beasts before the breath had left them. Respectable

families, who left home in search of the favoured land of Mâlwa,

while yet a little property remained, finding all exhausted, took

opium rather than beg, and husband, wife, and children died in each

other's arms. Still more of such families lingered on in hope till

all had been expended; then shut their doors, took poison and died

all together, rather than expose their misery, and submit to the

degradation of begging. All these things I have myself known and

seen; and, in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes

which present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail

to remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit

to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting acts

which have characterized the famines of which he has read in other

countries--such as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers

devouring their own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian

famines;[10] here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real

cause, the want of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of

hatred against their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in

society who happen to live beyond the range of such calamities. They

gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are

always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and, though

their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride, the pride

of caste, they rarely ever drive the people to acts of violence. The

stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the

agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries,

must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it

takes a greater number of people than they have the means of

relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say that

I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems to

animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing

occasions.

In such seasons of distress, we often, in India, hear of very

injudicious interference with grain dealers on the part of civil and

military authorities, who contrive to persuade themselves that the

interest of these corn-dealers, instead of being in accordance with

the interests of the people, are entirely opposed to them; and

conclude that, whenever grain becomes dear, they have a right to make

them open their granaries, and sell their grain at such price as

they, in their wisdom, may deem reasonable. If they cannot make them

do this by persuasion, fine, or imprisonment, they cause their pits

to be opened by their own soldiers or native officers, and the grain

to be sold at an arbitrary price. If, in a hundred pits thus opened,

they find one in which the corn happens to be damaged by damp, they

come to the sage conclusion that the proprietors must be what they

have all along supposed them to be, and treated as such--_the common

enemies of mankind_--who, blind alike to their own interests and

those of the people, purchase up the superabundance of seasons of

plenty, not to sell it again in seasons of scarcity, but _to destroy

it_; and that the whole of the grain in the other ninety-nine pits,

but for their _timely interference_, must have inevitably shared the

same fate.[11]

During the season here mentioned, grain had become very dear at

Sâgar, from the unusual demand in Bundêlkhand and other districts to

the north. As usual, supplies of land produce flowed up from the

Nerbudda districts along the great roads to the east and west of the

city; but the military authorities in the cantonments would not be

persuaded out of their dread of a famine. There were three regiments

of infantry, a corps of cavalry, and two companies of artillery

cantoned at that time at Sâgar. They were a mile from the city, and

the grain for their supply was exempted from town duties to which

that for the city was liable. The people in cantonments got their

supply, in consequence, a good deal cheaper than the people in the

city got theirs; and none but persons belonging bona fide to the

cantonments were ever allowed to purchase grain within them. When the

dread of famine began, the commissariat officer, Major Gregory,

apprehended that he might not be permitted to have recourse to the

markets of the city in times of scarcity, since the people of the

city had not been suffered to have recourse to those of the

cantonments in times of plenty; but he was told by the magistrate to

purchase as much as he liked, since he considered every man as free

to sell his grain as his cloth, or pots and pans, to whom he

chose.[12] He added that he did not share in the fears of the

military authorities--that he had no apprehension whatever of a

famine, or when prices rose high enough they would be sure to divert

away into the city, from the streams then flowing up from the valley

of the Nerbudda and the districts of Mâlwa towards Bundêlkhand, a

supply of grain sufficient for all.

This new demand upon the city increased rapidly the price of grain,

and augmented the alarm of the people, who began to urge the

magistrate to listen to their prayers, and coerce the sordid corn-

dealers, who had, no doubt, numerous pits yet unopened. The alarm

became still greater in the cantonments, where the commanding officer

attributed all the evil to the inefficiency of the commissariat and

the villany of the corn-dealers; and Major Gregory was in dread of

being torn to pieces by the soldiery. Only one day's supply was left

in the cantonment bazaars--the troops had become clamorous almost to

a state of mutiny--the people of the town began to rush in upon every

supply that was offered for sale; and those who had grain to dispose

of could no longer venture to expose it. The magistrate was hard

pressed on all sides to have recourse to the old salutary method of

searching for and forcibly opening the grain pits, and selling the

contents at such price as might appear reasonable. The kotwâl[13] of

the town declared that the lives of his police would be no longer

safe unless this great and never-failing remedy, which had now

unhappily been too long deferred, were immediately adopted.

The magistrate, who had already taken every other means of declaring

his resolution never to suffer any man's granary to be forcibly

opened, now issued a formal proclamation, pledging himself to see

that such granaries should be as much respected as any other property

in the city--that every man might keep his grain and expose it for

sale, wherever and whenever he pleased; and expressing a hope that,

as the people knew him too well not to feel assured that his word

thus solemnly pledged would never be broken, he trusted they would

sell what stores they had, and apply themselves without apprehension

to the collecting of more.

This proclamation he showed to Major Gregory, assuring him that no

degree of distress or clamour among the people of the city or the

cantonments should ever make him violate the pledge therein given to

the corn-dealers; and that he was prepared to risk his situation and

reputation as a public officer upon the result. After issuing this

proclamation about noon, he had his police establishments augmented,

and so placed and employed as to give to the people entire confidence

in the assurances conveyed in it. The grain-dealers, no longer

apprehensive of danger, opened their pits of grain, and sent off all

their available means to bring in more. In the morning the bazaars

were all supplied, and every man who had money could buy as much as

he pleased. The troops got as much as they required from the city.

Major Gregory was astonished and delighted. The colonel, a fine old

soldier from the banks of the Indus, who had commanded a corps of

horse under the former government, came to the magistrate in

amazement; every shop had become full of grain as if by supernatural

agency.

_'Kâle âdmî kî akl kahân talak chalêgî_?' said he. 'How little could

a black man's wisdom serve him in such an emergency?'

There was little wisdom in all this; but there was a firm reliance

upon the truth of the general principle which should guide all public

officers on such occasions. The magistrate judged that there were a

great many pits of grain in the town known only to their own

proprietors, who were afraid to open them, or get more grain, while

there was a chance of the civil authorities yielding to the clamours

of the people and the anxiety of the officers commanding the troops;

and that he had only to remove these fears, by offering a solemn

pledge, and manifesting the means and the will to abide by it, in

order to induce the proprietors, not only to sell what they had, but

to apply all their means to the collecting of more. But it is a

singular fact that almost all the officers of the cantonments thought

the conduct of the magistrate in refusing to have the grain pits

opened under such pressing circumstances extremely reprehensible.

Had he done so, he might have given the people of the city and the

cantonments the supply at hand; but the injury done to the corn-

dealers by so very unwise a measure would have recoiled upon the

public, since every one would have been discouraged from exerting

himself to renew the supply, and from laying up stores to meet

similar necessities in future. By acting as he did, he not only

secured for the public the best exertions of all the existing corn-

dealers of the place, but actually converted for the time a great

many to that trade from other employments, or from idleness. A great

many families, who had never traded before, employed their means in

bringing a supply of grain, and converted their dwellings into corn

shops, induced by the high profits and assurance of protection.

During the time when he was most pressed the magistrate received a

letter from Captain Robinson, who was in charge of the bazaars at

Elichpur in the Hyderabad territory,[14] where the dearth had become

even more felt than at Sâgar, requesting to know what measures had

been adopted to regulate the price, and secure the supply of grain

for the city and cantonments at Sâgar, since no good seemed to result

from those hitherto pursued at Elichpur. He told him in reply that

these things had hitherto been regulated at Sâgar as he thought 'they

ought to be regulated everywhere else, by being left entirely to the

discretion of the corn-dealers themselves, whose self-interest will

always prompt them to have a sufficient supply, as long as they may

feel secure of being permitted to do what they please with what they

collect. The commanding officer, in his anxiety to secure food for

the people, had hitherto been continually interfering to coerce sales

and regulate prices, and continually aggravating the evils of the

dearth by so doing'. On the receipt of the Sâgar magistrate's letter

a different course was adopted; the same assurances were given to the

corn-dealers, the same ability and inclination to enforce them

manifested, and the same result followed. The people and the troops

were steadily supplied; and all were astonished that so very simple a

remedy had not before been thought of.

The ignorance of the first principles of political economy among

European gentlemen of otherwise first-rate education and abilities in

India is quite lamentable, for there are really few public officers,

even in the army, who are not occasionally liable to be placed in the

situations where they may, by false measures, arising out of such

ignorance, aggravate the evils of dearth among great bodies of their

fellow men. A soldier may, however, find some excuse for such

ignorance, because a knowledge of these principles is not generally

considered to form any indispensable part of a soldier's education;

but no excuse can be admitted for a civil functionary who is so

ignorant, since a thorough acquaintance with the principles of

political economy must be, and, indeed, always is considered as an

essential branch of that knowledge which is to fit him for public

employment in India.[15]

In India unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous

consequences than in Europe. In England not more than one-fourth of

the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of the lands

around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes independent of

the annual returns from those lands; and with these incomes they can

purchase agricultural produce from other lands when the crops upon

them fail. The farmers, who form so large a portion of the fourth

class, have stock equal in value to _four times the amount of the

annual rent of their lands_. They have also a great variety of crops;

and it is very rare that more than one or two of them fail, or are

considerably affected, the same season. If they fail in one district

or province, the deficiency is very easily supplied to a people who

have equivalents to give for the produce of another. The sea,

navigable rivers, fine roads, all are open and ready at all times for

the transport of the superabundance of one quarter to supply the

deficiencies of another. In India, the reverse of all this is

unhappily to be found; more than three-fourths of the whole

population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend

upon its annual returns for subsistence.[16] The farmers and

cultivators have none of their stock equal in value to more than

_half the amount of the annual rent of their lands_.[17] They have a

great variety of crops; but all are exposed to the same accidents,

and commonly fail at the same time. The autumn crops are sown in June

and July, and ripen in October and November; and, if seasonable

showers do not fall during July, August, and September, all fail. The

spring crops are sown in October and November, and ripen in March;

and, if seasonable showers do not happen to fall during December or

January, all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail.[18] If they

fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to

offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads are

scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages at _any season_, and

nowhere _at all seasons_--they have nowhere a navigable canal, and

only in one line a navigable river.

Their land produce is conveyed upon the backs of bullocks, that move

at the rate of six or eight miles a day, and add one hundred per

cent. to the cost of every hundred miles they carry it in the best

seasons, and more than two hundred in the worst.[19] What in Europe

is felt merely as a _dearth_, becomes in India, under all these

disadvantages, a scarcity, and what is there a _scarcity_ becomes

here a _famine_. Tens of thousands die here of starvation, under

calamities of season, which in Europe would involve little of

suffering to any class. Here man does everything, and he must have

his daily food or starve. In England machinery does more than three-

fourths of the collective work of society in the production,

preparation, and distribution of man's physical enjoyments, and it

stands in no need of this daily food to sustain its powers; they are

independent of the seasons; the water, fire, air, and other elemental

powers which they require to render them subservient to our use are

always available in abundance.

This machinery is the great assistant of the present generation,

provided for us by the wisdom and industry of the past; wanting no

food itself, it can always provide its proprietors with the means of

purchasing what they require from other countries, when the harvests

of their own fail. When calamities of season deprive men of

employment for a time in tillage, they can, in England, commonly find

it in other branches of industry, because agricultural industry forms

so small a portion of the collective industry of the nation; and

because every man can, without prejudice to his status in society,

take to what branch of industry he pleases. But, when these

calamities of season throw men out of employment in tillage for a

time in India, they cannot find it in any other branch, because

agricultural industry forms so very large a portion of the collective

industry of every part of the country; and because men are often

prevented by the prejudices of caste from taking to that which they

can find.[20]

In societies constituted like that of India the trade of the corn-

dealer is more essentially necessary for the welfare of the community

than in any other, for it is among them that the superabundance of

seasons of plenty requires most to be stored up for seasons of

scarcity; and if public functionaries will take upon themselves to

seize such stores, and sell them at their own arbitrary prices,

whenever prices happen to rise beyond the rate which they in their

short-sighted wisdom think just, no corn-dealer will ever collect

such stores. Hitherto, whenever grain has become dear at any military

or civil station, we have seen the civil functionaries urged to

prohibit its egress--to search for the hidden stores, and to coerce

the proprietors to the sale in all manner of ways; and, if they do

not yield to the ignorant clamour, they are set down as indifferent

to the sufferings of their fellow creatures around them, and as

blindly supporting the worst enemies of mankind in the worst species

of iniquity.

If those who urge them to such measures are asked whether

silversmiths or linendrapers, who should be treated in the same

manner as they wish the corn-dealers to be treated, would ever

collect and keep stores of plate and cloth for their use, they

readily answer--No; they see at once the evil effects of interfering

with the free disposal of the property of the one, but are totally

blind to that which must as surely follow any interference with that

of the other, whose entire freedom is of so much more vital

importance to the public. There was a time, and that not very remote,

when grave historians, like Smollett, could, even in England, fan the

flame of this vulgar prejudice against one of the most useful classes

of society. That day is, thank God, past; and no man can now venture

to write such trash in his history, or even utter it in any well-

informed circle of English society; and, if any man were to broach

such a subject in an English House of Commons, he would be considered

as a fit subject for a madhouse.

But some, who retain their prejudices against corn-dealers, and are

yet ashamed to acknowledge their ignorance of the first principles of

political economy, try to persuade themselves and their friends that,

however applicable these may be to the state of society in European

or Christian countries, they are not so to countries occupied by

Hindoos and Muhammadans. This is a sad delusion, and may be a very

mischievous one, when indulged by public officers in India.[21]

Notes:

1. Irrigation by means of a 'dug-out' canoe used as a lever is

commonly practised in many parts of the country. The author gives a

rough sketch, not worth reproduction. The Persian wheel is suitable

for use in wide-mouthed wells. It may be described as a mill-wheel

with buckets on the circumference, which are filled and emptied as

the wheel revolves. It is worked by bullock-power acting on a rude

cog-wheel.

2. December, 1835.

3. A.D. 1833 corresponds to the year 1890 of the _Vikrama Samvat_, or

era, current in Bundêlkhand. About 1880 the editor found this great

famine still remembered as that of the year '90.

4. Half a crown seems to be used in this passage as a synonym for the

rupee, now (1914) worth a shilling and four pence.

5. Bundêlkhand seems to be the meeting-place of the east and west

monsoons, and the moist current is, in consequence, often feeble and

variable. The country suffered again from famine in 1861 and 1877,

although not so severely as in 1833. In northern Bundêlkhand a canal

from the Betwa river has been constructed, but is of only very

limited use. The peculiarities of the soil and climate forbid the

wide extension of irrigation. For the prevention of acute famine in

this region the chief reliance must be on improved communications.

The country has been opened up by the Indian Midland and other

railways. In 1899-1900, notwithstanding improved communications,

Mâlwa suffered severely from famine. Aurangzêb considered Gujarât to

be 'the ornament and jewel of India' (Bilimoria, _Letters of

Aurungzebie_, 1908, no. lxiv).

6. The influence of trees on climate is undoubted, but the author in

this passage probably ascribes too much power to the groves of Mâlwa.

On the formation of the black soil see note 7 to Chapter 14, _ante_.

7. The word in the author's text is 'grain', a misprint for 'gram'

(_Cicer arietinum_), a pulse, also known as chick-pea, and very

largely grown in Bundêlkhand. 'Gram' is a corruption of the

Portuguese word for grain, and, like many other Portuguese words, has

passed into the speech of Anglo-Indians. See Yule and Burnell,

_Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words_, s.v.

8. 'Agricultural capitalist' is a rather large phrase for the humble

village money-lender, whose transactions are usually on a very small

scale.

9. The author's advice on the subject of famine relief is weighty and

perfectly sound. It is in accordance with the policy formulated by

the Government of India in the Famine Relief Code, based on the

Report of the Famine Commission which followed the terrible Madras

famine of 1877.

10. This statement is too general. Examples of the horror alluded to

are recorded in several Indian famines. Cases of cannibalism occurred

during the Madras famine of 1877. But it is true that horrors of the

kind are rare in India, and the author's praise of the patient

resignation of the people is fully justified. An admirable summary of

the history of Indian famines will be found in the articles 'Famines'

and 'Food' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed. (1885). For further and

more recent information see _I.G._ (1907), vol. iii, chap. 10.

11. No European officer, military or civil, could now venture to

adopt such arbitrary measures. In a Native State they might very

probably be enforced.

12. 'The magistrate' was the author himself.

13. The chief police officer of a town. In the modern reorganized

system he always holds the rank of either Inspector or Sub-Inspector.

Under native governments he was a more important official.

14. Elichpur (Îlichpur) is in Berâr, otherwise known as the Assigned

Districts, a territory made over in Lord Dalhousie's time to British

administration in order to defray the cost of the armed force called

the Hyderabad Contingent. Since 1903 Berâr has ceased to be a

separate province. It is now merely a Division attached to the

Central Provinces. From the same date the Hyderabad Contingent lost

its separate existence, being redistributed and merged in the Indian

Army.

15. Political Economy was for many years a compulsory subject for the

selected candidates for the Civil Service of India; but since 1892

its study has been optional.

16. The census of 1911 shows that about 71 per cent. of the

301,000,000 inhabiting India, excluding Burma, are supported by the

cultivation of the soil and the care of cattle. The proportion varies

widely in different provinces.

17. This proposition does not apply fully to Northern India at the

present day. The amount of capital invested is small, although not

quite so small as is stated in the text.

18. The times of harvest vary slightly with the latitude, being later

towards the north. The cold-weather rains of December and January are

variable and uncertain, and rarely last more than a few days. The

spring crops depend largely on the heavy dews which occur daring the

cold season.

19. Daring the years which have elapsed since the famine of 1833,

great changes have taken place in India, and many of the author's

remarks are only partially applicable to the present time. The great

canals, above all, the wonderful Ganges Canal, have protected immense

areas of Northern India from the possibility of absolute famine, and

Southern India has also been to a considerable, though less, extent,

protected by similar works. A few new staples, of which potatoes are

the most important, have been introduced. The whole system of

distribution has been revolutionized by the development of railways,

metalled roads, wheeled vehicles, motors, telegraphs, and navigable

canals. Carriage on the backs of animals, whether bullocks, camels,

or donkeys, now plays a very subordinate part in the distribution of

agricultural produce. Prices are, in great measure, dependent on the

rates prevailing in Liverpool, Odessa, and Chicago. Food grains now

stand ordinarily at prices which, in the author's time, would have

been reckoned famine rates. The changes which have taken place in

England are too familiar to need comment.

20. Since the author's time certain industries, the most important

being cotton-pressing, cotton-spinning, and jute-spinning, have

sprung up and assumed in Bombay, Calcutta, Cawnpore, and a few other

places, proportions which, absolutely, are large. But India is so

vast that these local developments of manufactures, large though they

are, seem to be as nothing when regarded in comparison with the

country as a whole. India is still, and, to all appearance, always

must be, essentially an agricultural country.

21. The author's teaching concerning freedom of trade in times of

famine and the function of dealers in corn is as sound as his

doctrine of famine relief. The 'vulgar prejudice', which he

denounces, still flourishes, and the 'sad delusion', which he

deplores, still obscures the truth. As each period of scarcity or

famine comes round, the old cries are again heard, and the executive

authorities are implored and adjured to forbid export, to fix fair

prices, and to clip the profits of the corn merchant. During the

Bengal famine of 1873-4, the demand for the prohibition of the export

of rice was urged by men who should have known better, and Lord

Northbrook is entitled to no small credit for having firmly withstood

the clamour. The more recent experiences of the Russian Government

should be remembered when the clamour is again raised, as it will be.

The principles on which the author acted in the crisis at Sâgar in

1833 should guide every magistrate who finds himself in a similar

position, and should be applied with unhesitating firmness and

decision.

CHAPTER 25

Epidemic Diseases--Scape-goat.

In the evening, after my conversation with the cultivator upon the

wall that united the two hills,[1] I received a visit from my little

friend the Sarîmant. His fine rose-coloured turban is always put on

very gracefully; every hair of his jet-black eyebrows and mustachios

seems to be kept always most religiously in the same place; and he

has always the same charming smile upon his little face, which was

never, I believe, distorted into an absolute laugh or frown. No man

was ever more perfectly master of what the natives call 'the art of

rising or sitting' (_nishisht wa barkhâst_), namely, good manners. I

should as soon expect to see him set the Nerbudda on fire as commit

any infringement of the _convenances_ on this head established in

good Indian society, or be guilty of anything vulgar in speech,

sentiment, or manners. I asked him by what means it was that the old

queen of Sâgar[2] drove out the influenza that afflicted the people

so much in 1832, while he was there on a visit to me. He told me that

he took no part in the ceremonies, nor was he aware of them till

awoke one night by 'the noise, when his attendants informed him that

the queen and the greater part of the city were making offerings to

the new god, Hardaul Lâla. He found next morning that a goat had been

offered up with as much noise as possible, and with good effect, for

the disease was found to give way from that moment. About six years

before, when great numbers were dying in his own little capital of

Pithoria[3] from a similar epidemic, he had, he said, tried the same

thing with still greater effect; but, on that occasion, he had the

aid of a man very learned in such matters. This man caused a small

carriage to be made up after a plan of his own, for _a pair of scape-

goats_, which were harnessed to it, and driven during the ceremonies

to a wood some distance from the town, where they were let loose.

From that hour the disease entirely ceased in the town. The goats

never returned. 'Had they come back,' said Sarîmant, 'the disease

must have come back with them; so he took them a long way into the

wood--indeed (he believed), the man, to make sure of them, had

afterwards caused them to be offered up as a sacrifice to the shrine

of Hardaul Lâla, in that very wood. He had himself never seen a

_pûjâ_ (religious ceremony) so entirely and immediately efficacious

as this, and much of its success was, no doubt, attributable to the

_science_ of the man who planned the carriage, and himself drove the

pair of goats to the wood. No one had ever before heard of the plan

of a pair of _scape-goats_ being driven in a carriage; but it was

likely (he thought) to be extensively adopted in future.'[4]

Sarîmant's man of affairs mentioned that when Lord Hastings took the

field against the Pindhârîs, in 1817,[5] and the division of the

grand army under his command was encamped near the grove in

Bundêlkhand, where repose the ashes of Hardaul Lâla, under a small

shrine, a cow was taken into this grove to be converted into beef for

the use of the Europeans. The priest in attendance remonstrated, but

in vain--the cow was killed and eaten. The priest complained, and

from that day the cholera morbus broke out in the camp; and from this

central point it was, he said, generally understood to have spread

all over India.[6] The story of the cow travelled at the same time,

and the spirit of Hardaul Lâla was everywhere supposed to be riding

in the whirlwind, and _directing the storm_. Temples were everywhere

erected, and offerings made to appease him; and in six years after,

he had himself seen them as far as Lahore, and in almost every

village throughout the whole course of his journey to that distant

capital and back. He is one of the most sensible and freely spoken

men that I have met with. 'Up to within the last few years', added

he, 'the spirit of Hardaul Lâla had been propitiated only in cases of

cholera morbus; but now he is supposed to preside over all kinds of

epidemic diseases, and offerings have everywhere been made to his

shrine during late influenzas.'[7]

'This of course arises', I observed, 'from the industry of his

priests, who are now spread all over the country; and you know that

there is hardly a village or hamlet in which there are not some of

them to be found subsisting upon the fears of the people.'