CHAPTER 4

The Patār Plateau. Kanera, February 13: nine miles.—A new feature in the face of Mewar was this day disclosed to us. At the termination of our short march, we ascended the Patar, or plateau of Central India, the grand natural rampart defending Mewar on the east. As we approached it, the level line of its crest, so distinct from the pinnacled Aravalli, at once proclaimed it to be a tableland, or rock of the secondary formation. Although its elevation is not above four hundred feet from its western base, the transition is remarkable, and it presents from the summit one of the most diversified scenes, whether in a moral, political, or picturesque point of view, that I [627] ever beheld. From this spot the mind’s eye embraces at once all the grand theatres of the history of Mewar. Upon our right lies Chitor, the palladium of Hinduism; on the west, the gigantic Aravalli, enclosing the new capital, and the shelter of her heroes; here, at our feet, or within view, all the alienated lands now under the ‘barbarian Turk’ or Mahratta, as Jawad, Jiran, Nimach, Nimbahera, Kheri, Ratangarh. What associations, what aspirations, does this scene conjure up to one who feels as a Rajput for this fair land! The rich flat we have passed over—a space of nearly seventy English miles from one table-range to the other—appears as a deep basin, fertilized by numerous streams, fed by huge reservoirs in the mountains, and studded with towns, which once were populous, but are for the most part now in ruins, though the germ of incipient prosperity is just appearing. From this height I condensed all my speculative ideas on a very favourite subject—the formation of a canal to unite the ancient and modern capitals of Mewar, by which her soil might be made to return a tenfold harvest, and famine be shut out for ever from her gates. My eye embraced the whole line of the Berach, from its outlet at the Udaisagar, to its passage within a mile of Chitor, and the benefit likely to accrue from such a work appeared incalculable.^[1] What new ideas would be opened to the Rajput, on seeing the trains of oxen, which now creep slowly along with merchandise for the capital, exchanged for boats gliding along the canal; and his fields, for many miles on each side, irrigated by lateral cuts, instead of the cranking Egyptian wheel, as it is called, but which is indigenous to India!^[2] If the reader will turn to the map, he will perceive the great facilities for such an undertaking. He will there see two grand reservoirs within six miles of each other, the Pichola, or internal lake, having an elevation of eighty feet above the external one, the Udaisagar, whose outlet forms the Berach River; but for which the valley of the capital would be one wide lake and which, for want of proper regulation, once actually submerged a third of it. The Pichola may be called the parent of the other, although it is partly fed by the minor lake at the villa of Suheli-ki-bari. Both are from twelve to fourteen miles in circumference, in some places thirty-five feet deep, and being fed by the perennial streams from the Aravalli, they contain a constant supply of water. From the external lake to Chitor, the fall is so slight that few locks would be required; and the soil being a yielding one throughout, the expense of the undertaking would be moderate. There is plenty of material in the neighbouring hills and forests, and by furnishing occupation for the wild population, the work would tend not a little to reclaim them. But [628] where are the means? With this difficulty, and the severe blow to our incipient prosperity in this untimely frost, our schemes dissipate like the mist of the morning. But I cannot relinquish the conviction that the undertaking, if executed, would not only enable the Rana to pay his tribute, but to be more merciful to his subjects, for whose welfare it is our chief duty to labour.^[3]

The summit of the Patar has a fertile soil, well-watered and well-wooded, and producing the mango, mahua, and nim; and were the appearance of the crops a criterion, we should say it was equal in fertility to the best part of Mewar. In ancient inscriptions, the term Uparmal is applied, as well as Patar, to this marked feature in the geological structure of Central India: the first being rendered exactly by the German oberland; the other signifying ‘flat,’ or table-land.

In the indented recesses of this elevated land, which covers an immense portion of Central India, there are numerous spots of romantic beauty, which enthusiasm has not failed to identify with religious associations. Wherever there is a deep glen, a natural fountain, or a cascade, the traveller will infallibly discover some traces of the ‘Great God’ (Mahadeva) of the Hindus, the creator and destroyer of life.

Until the last sixty years, the whole of the plateau, as far as the Chambal, belonged to Mewar; but all, with the exception of Kanera, are now in the hands of Sindhia. Kanera is the chief township of a small district of twenty-two villages, which, by the change of events, has fortunately reverted to the Rana, although it was not extricated from the grasp of the Mahrattas without some difficulty; it was taken first, and the right of repossession argued afterwards. Would we had tried the same process with all the rest of the plateau; but unhappily they were rented to old Lalaji Balal, a lover of order, and an ally of old Zalim Singh! But let me repeat, for the tenth time, that all these lands are only held by Sindhia on mortgage for war-contributions, paid over and over again; and when an opportunity occurs, let this be a record, and the Patar west of the Chambal be restored to Mewar.

I was delighted to see that the crops of Kanera had only partially suffered from the ravages of the frost of the 3rd, 4th, to 25th, which extended over Malwa, and that although the gram was destroyed, the wheat, barley, sugar-cane, and poppy, were abundant and little injured; though we could have wished that the last-named pernicious plant, which is annually increasing all over these regions, had been sacrificed in lieu of the noble crops of vetches (gram).

That the culture of the poppy, to the detriment of more useful husbandry, is increasing to an extent which demands the strong hand of legislative restraint, must strike the most superficial observer in these regions. When the sumptuary laws of this patriarchal government were in force, a restraint was at the same time imposed on an improvident system of farming which, of course, affected the prince, whose chief revenues were derived from the soil; and one of the agrarian laws of Mewar was, that there should be to each charas, or skin of land, only one bigha of opium, and the same quantity of cane, with the usual complement of corn. But the feverish excitement produced by our monopoly of the drug has extended its culture in every direction, and even in tracts where hitherto it has never entered into their agricultural economy. Whatever [630], therefore, be the wisdom or policy of our interference in this matter, of the result there can be no doubt, namely, that it converted the agricultural routinières into speculators and gamblers.

We are indebted to the commentaries of the imperial autobiographers, Babur, Akbar, and Jahangir, for the most valuable information on the introduction of exotics into the horticultural economy of India; and we are proud to pay our tribute of applause to the illustrious house of Timur, whose princes, though despots by birth and education, and albeit the bane of Rajputana, we must allow, present a more remarkable succession of great characters, historians, statesmen, and warriors, than any contemporaneous dynasty, in any region of the world.^[8]

Akbar followed up the plans of Babur, and introduced the gardeners of Persia and Tartary, who succeeded with many of their fruits, as peaches, almonds (both indigenous to Rajputana), pistachios, etc. To Jahangir’s Commentaries we owe the knowledge that tobacco was introduced into India in his reign; but of the period when the poppy became an object of culture, for the manufacture of opium, we have not the least information. Whatever may be the antiquity of this drug, for medicinal uses, it may be asserted that its abuse is comparatively recent, or not more than three [631] centuries back.^[9] In none of the ancient heroic poems of Hindustan is it ever alluded to. The guest is often mentioned in them as welcomed by the munawwar piyala, or ‘cup of greeting,’^[10] but nowhere by the amal-pani, or ‘infused opiate,’ which has usurped the place of the phul-ra-arak, or ‘essence of flowers.’ Before, however, the art of extracting the properties of the poppy, as at present, was practised, they used the opiate in its crudest form, by simply bruising the capsules, which they steeped a certain time in water, afterwards drinking the infusion, to which they give the name of tijara, and not unfrequently post, ‘the poppy.’ This practice still prevails in the remote parts of Rajputana, where either ignorance of the more refined process, prejudice, or indolence, operates to maintain old habits.

The culture of opium was at first confined to the duab, or tract between the Chambal and Sipra, from their sources to their junction; but although tradition has preserved the fact of this being the original poppy-nursery of Central India, it has long ceased to be the only place of the poppy’s growth, it having spread not only throughout Malwa, but into various parts of Rajputana, especially Mewar and Haraoti.^[11] But though all classes, Kunbis and Jats, Banias and Brahmans, try the culture, all yield the palm of superior skill to the Kunbi, the original cultivator, who will extract one-fifth more from the plant than any of his competitors.

It is a singular fact, that the cultivation of opium increased in the inverse ratio of general prosperity; and that as war, pestilence, and famine, augmented their virulence, and depopulated Rajputana, so did the culture of this baneful weed appear to thrive. The predatory system, which succeeded Mogul despotism, soon devastated this fair region, and gradually restricted agricultural pursuits to the richer harvests of barley, wheat, and gram; till at length even these were confined to a bare sustenance for the families of the cultivator, who then found a substitute in the poppy. From the small extent of its culture, he was able to watch it, or to pay for its protection from pillage; this he could not do for his corn, which a troop of horse might save him the trouble of cutting. A kind of moral barometer might, indeed, be constructed, to show that the maximum of oppression in Mewar was the maximum of the culture of the poppy in Malwa. Emigration commenced in S. 1840 (A.D. 1784); it was at its height in S. 1856 (A.D. 1800), and went on gradually depopulating that country until S. 1874 (A.D. 1818). Its consumption, of course, kept pace with its production, it having found a vent in foreign markets.

The districts to which the emigrants fled were those of Mandasor, Khachrod, Unel [632], and others, situated on the feeders of the Chambal, in its course through Lower Malwa.^[12] There they enjoyed comparative protection and kind treatment, under Apa Sahib and his father, who were long the farmers-general of these fertile lands. It could not be expected, however, that the new settlers should be allowed to participate in the lands irrigated by wells already excavated; but Apa advanced funds, and appointed them lands, all fertile though neglected, in which they excavated wells for themselves. They abandoned altogether wheat and barley, growing only makkai or ‘Indian corn,’ for food, which requires no irrigation, and to which the poppy succeeds in rotation; to these, and the sugar-cane, all their industry was directed.

But to proceed with the process of cultivation. When the crops of Indian corn (makkai) or of hemp (san) are gathered in, the stalks are rooted up and burned; the field is then flooded, and, when sufficiently saturated, ploughed up. It is then copiously manured with cow-dung, which is deemed the best for the purpose; but even this has undergone a preparatory operation, or chemical decomposition, being kept in a hollow ground during the rainy season, and often agitated with long poles, to allow the heat to evaporate. In this state it is spread over the fields and ploughed in. Those who do not keep kine, and cannot afford to purchase manure, procure flocks of goats and sheep, and pay so much a night for having them penned in the fields. The land being ploughed and harrowed at least six or seven times, until the soil is almost pulverized, it is divided into beds, and slight embankments are formed to facilitate irrigation. The seed is then thrown in, the fields are again inundated; and the seventh day following this is repeated to saturation. On the seventh or ninth, but occasionally not until the eleventh day, the plant springs up; and on the twenty-fifth, when it has put forth a few leaves, and begins to look withered, they water it once more. As soon as this moisture dries, women and children are turned into the fields to thin the plants, leaving them about eight inches asunder, and loosening the earth around them with iron spuds. The plant is at this stage about three inches high. A month later it is watered moderately, and when dry, the earth is again turned up and loosened. The fifth water is given in about ten days more; two days after which a flower appears here and there. This is the signal for another watering, called ‘the flower-watering’; after which, in twenty-four or thirty-six hours, all the flowers burst their cells. When about half the petals have fallen, they irrigate the plants sufficiently to moisten the earth, and soon the rest of the flowers drop off, leaving the bare capsule, which rapidly increases in bulk. In a short period, when scarcely a flower remains, a whitish [633] powder collects outside the capsule, which is the signal for immediate application of the lancet.

The field is now divided into three parts, in one of which operations commence. The cutting-instrument consists of three prongs, with delicate points, around which cotton thread is bound to prevent its making too deep an incision, and thus causing the liquid to flow into the interior of the capsule. The wound is made from the base upwards, and the milky juice which exudes coagulates outside. Each plant is thrice pierced, on three successive days, the operation commencing as soon as the sun begins to warm. In cold mornings, when it congeals rapidly, the coagulation is taken off with a scraper. The fourth morning each plant is once more pierced, to ascertain that no juice remains. On each morning this extract is immersed in a vessel of linseed oil, to prevent it from drying up. The juice being all collected, there remains only the seed. The capsules are therefore broken off and carried to the barn, where they are spread out upon the ground; a little water is sprinkled over them, and being covered with a cloth, they remain till the morning, when the cattle tread out the seed, which is sent to the oilmen, and the refuse is burnt, lest the cattle should eat them, as even in this stage they are poisonous. Poppy oil is more used for the chiragh (lamp) than any other in Mewar. They calculate a maund (of forty sers, or about seventy-five pounds weight) of seed for every two sers of milk. The price of seed is now twenty rupees per mauni of one hundred and twelve (kachha) maunds.

One bigha of Malwa land, of the measure Shahjahani (when the jarib, or rod, is one hundred cubits long), will yield from five to fifteen sers of opium-juice, each ser being forty-five Salimshahi^[13] rupees in weight: the medium is reckoned a good produce. The cultivator or farmer sells it, in the state described, to the speculator, at the price current of the day. The purchaser puts it into cotton bags of three folds, and carries it home. Having obtained the leaves of the poppy, he spreads them in a heap of two or three inches in depth, and thereon deposits the opium, in balls of fifteen rupees’ weight each, which are allowed to remain five months for the purpose of evaporation. If the milk has been thin, or treated with oil, seven parts in ten will remain; but if good and pure, eight. The beoparis (speculators) then sell it, either for home-consumption in Rajputana, or for exportation.

From the year S. 1840 (A.D. 1784) to S. 1857 (A.D. 1801), the market-price of the crude opium from the cultivator ran from sixteen to twenty-one Salimshahi rupees per dari, a measure of five pakka sers, each ser being the weight of ninety Salimshahi [634] rupees. I give the price of the drug by the grower in the first stage as a better criterion than that of the manufacturer in its prepared state. In the year S. 1857 it rose to twenty-five rupees; in S. 1860 to twenty-seven, gradually increasing till S. 1865 (A.D. 1809), when it attained its maximum of forty-two, or an advance of one hundred and seventy per cent above the price of the year A.D. 1784. But some natural causes are assigned for this extraordinary advance; after which it gradually fell, until S. 1870 (A.D. 1814), when it was so low as twenty-nine. In S. 1873 it had again risen to thirty-three, and in S. 1874-75, when its transit to the ports of Sind and Gujarat was unmolested (whence it was exported to China and the Archipelago), it had reached thirty-eight and thirty-nine, where it now (S. 1876, or A.D. 1820) stands.

In Kanthal^[14] (which includes Partabgarh Deola), or the tracts upon the Mahi River, opium is cultivated to a great extent, and adulterated in an extraordinary manner. This being sold in China as Malwa opium, has greatly lessened the value of the drug in that market. The adulteration is managed as follows: a preparation of refined gur (molasses) and gum, in equal proportion, is added to half its quantity of opiate coagulum; the mass is then put into cauldrons, and after being well amalgamated by boiling, it is taken out, and when sufficiently dry is well beaten, and put into cotton bags, which are sewn up in green hides, and exported to Maskat-Mandavi. The Gosains of these parts are the chief contractors for this impure opium, which is reckoned peculiarly unwholesome, and is never consumed in Rajputana. Rumour says that it is transported to the Spice Islands, where it is used as a manure in the cultivation of the nutmeg. The transit-duties on opium, in the Native States, are levied on each bullock-load, so that the adulterated pays as much as the pure. The Gosains smuggle great quantities.

Such is the history, and I believe a pretty correct one, of the growth and extension of this execrable and demoralizing plant, for the last forty years. If the now paramount power, instead of making a monopoly of it, and consequently extending its cultivation, would endeavour to restrict it by judicious legislative enactments, or at least reduce its culture to what it was forty years ago, generations yet unborn would have just reason to praise us for this work of mercy. It is no less our interest than our duty to do so, and to call forth genuine industry, for the improvement of cotton, indigo, sugar-cane, and other products, which would enrich instead of demoralizing, and therefore impoverishing, the country. We have saved Rajputana from political ruin; but the boon of mere existence will be valueless if we fail to restore the [635] moral energies of her population; for of this fine region and noble race we might say, as Byron does of Greece—

or the mind is decayed, and the body often palsied and worn out, in the very meridian of life. As far as my personal influence went, I practised what I preach; and, as I have already stated, exacted a promise, from the Rana on the throne to the lowest Thakur, that they would never initiate their children in this debasing practice. But as mere declamation can do very little good, I will here insert a portion of the Agrarian customary code of Mewar and Malwa, which may be brought into operation directly or indirectly. The distribution of crops was as follows.

If the facts I have collected are confirmed on inquiry, the late measures of Government,^[15] in whatever motives originating, will only augment the mischief. Even admitting their expediency in protecting our Patna monopoly, and their justice as affecting the native governments (the contractors and cultivators of the drug), still other measures might have been devised, equally efficacious in themselves, and less pregnant with evil consequences.

CHAPTER 5

Dhāreswar, February 14: six miles; therm. 46° at 5 A.M.—From Kanera to Dhareswar there is a gradual descent, perhaps equal to one-third of the angle of ascent of the table-land. For half the distance the surface is a fine rich soil, but the last half is strewed with fragments of the rock. Dhareswar is beautifully situated at the lowest point of descent, with a clear stream, planted with fine timber to the south. The Bhumia rights are enjoyed by some Kachhwaha Rajputs, who pay a share of the crops to Kanera. Passed a few small hamlets in the grey of the morning, and several herd of elk-deer, who walked away from us with great deliberation; but the surface was too stony to try our horses’ mettle.

15th, Ratangarh Kheri, distance nine miles.—The road over a bare rock, skirting a stream flowing on its surface. Two miles from Dhareswar is the boundary of Kanera, and the Chaurasi (eighty-four townships) of Kheri; the descent still graduating to Kheri, which is probably not above one hundred feet higher than the external plains [637] of Mewar. The road was over loose stones with much jungle, but here and there some fine patches of rich black soil. We kept company with the Dhareswar nala all the way, which is well wooded in its course, and presented a pretty fall at one point of our journey. Passed several hamlets, and a colony of Charans, whom I found to be some of my friends of Marla. They had not forgotten their privilege; but as the ladies were only the matrons of the colony, there would have been no amusement in captivity; so I dropped five rupees into the brazen kalas, and passed on. The cavalcade of the Kamavisdar of Kheri was also at hand, consisting of about two hundred horse and foot, having left his castle on the peak to greet and conduct me to my tents. He is a relation of old Lalaji Balal, and intelligent and polite. Our tents were pitched near the town, to which the Pandit conducted us; after which act of civility, in the character of the locum tenens of my friend Lalaji, and his sovereign Sindhia (in whose camp I sojourned twelve long years), he took his leave, inviting me to the castle; but as it contained nothing antique, I would not give cause for jealousy to his prince by accepting his invitation, and civilly declined.

The Chaurasi, or eighty-four [townships] of Ratangarh Kheri, was in S. 1828 (A.D. 1772) assigned to Mahadaji Sindhia, to pay off a war-contribution; and until S. 1832, its revenues were regularly accounted for. It was then made over to Berji Tap, the son-in-law of Sindhia, and has ever since remained alienated from Mewar. The treason of the chief of Begun, one of the sixteen nobles of the Rana, lost this jewel in his crown, for he seized upon the Chaurasi, which adjoined his own estate, situated on the skirt of this alpine region. To expel him the Rana called on Sindhia, who not only took the Chaurasi, but Begun itself, which was heavily fined, and forty of its best villages, or half his fief, were mortgaged to pay the mulct. The landscape from these heights is very fine; the Pandit, from his aerial abode, can look down on Kheri, and exclaim with Selkirk—

but I would dispute his right with all my heart, if I could do so with success.

Little Atoa.^[1]—Distance eight miles, thermometer at daybreak 40°, with a cutting wind, straight from the north, which we keenly felt as our party ascended the heights of Ratangarh. The altitude of this second steppe in the plateau is under four hundred feet, although the winding ascent made it by the perambulator five furlongs. The fort is erected on a projection of the mountain, and the works are in pretty good order. They had been adding fresh ones on the accessible side, which the general state of [638] security has put a stop to. In fact, it could not hold out twenty-four hours against a couple of mortars, the whole interior being commanded from a height within easy range. I asked my old guide if the castle had ever stood a storm: his reply was in the negative: “She is still a kumari (a virgin), and all forts are termed kumaris, until they stand an assault.”^[2] We had a superb view from the summit, which is greatly above the level of Kanera, whose boundary line was distinct. The stream from Dhareswar was traced gliding through its embankments of black rock, covered with luxuriant young crops, and studded with mango and mahua trees. It is a singular fact, that the higher we ascended, the less mischief had been inflicted on the crops, although the sugar-cane looked prematurely ripe. The wheat fields were luxuriant, but the barley showed in their grizzly beards here and there an evidence of having suffered. I also noted that invariably all the low branches of the mahua trees were injured, the leaves shrivelled and dried up, while the superior ones were not affected. The field-peas (batloi)^[3] sown with the barley were more or less injured, but not nearly so much as at Kanera.

The road was execrable, if road it could be termed, which for many miles was formed for me by the kindness of the Pandit, who cut a path through the otherwise impenetrable jungle, the abode of elks and tigers, sufficient to pass my baggage. This route is never passed by troops; but I had curiosity to indulge, not comfort. About four miles from the castle, we ascended another moderate elevation to the village of Umar, whence we saw Paragarh on the left, and learning that it contained an inscription, I dispatched one of my pandits to copy it. A mile farther brought us to the extremity of the ridge serving as a landmark to the Chaurasi of Kheri. From it we viewed another steppe, that we shall ascend the day after to-morrow, from which I am told the Patar gradually shelves to the banks of the Chambal, the termination of our journey. As we passed the village of Ummedpura (Hopetown), a sub-infeudation of Begun, held by the uncle of its chief, we were greeted by the Thakur, accompanied by two of his kinsmen. They were all well mounted, lance in hand, and attired in their quilted tunics and deer-skin doublet, of itself no contemptible armour. They conveyed their chief’s compliments, and having accompanied me to my tents, took leave.

Chhota, or little Atoa, is also held by a sub-vassal of the same clan, the Meghawats of Begun; his name Dungar Singh, ‘the mountain lion,’ now with me, and who long enjoyed the pre-eminent distinction of being chief reiver of the Patar [639]. With our party he has the familiar appellation of Roderic Dhu, and without boasting of his past exploits, he never dreams of their being coupled with dishonour. Although he scoured the country far and near to bring blackmail to his mountain-retreat, it was from the Mahrattas chiefly that his wants were supplied; and he required but the power, to have attained the same measure of celebrity as his ancestor the ‘Blackcloud’ (Kala-megh) of Begun. Still, his name was long the bugbear of this region, and the words Dungar Singh aya! ‘the mountain lion is at hand!’ were sufficient to scare the peaceful occupants of the surrounding country from their property, or to arm them for its defence. With the ‘Southron’ he had just cause of quarrel, since, but for him, he would have been lord of Nadwai and its twenty-four villages, of which his grandfather was despoiled at the same time that this alpine region was wrested by Sindhia from his sovereign. This tappa, however, fell to Holkar; but the father of Dungar, lance in hand, gave the conqueror no rest, until he granted him a lease in perpetuity of four of the villages of his patrimony, two of which were under Holkar’s own seal, and two under that of the renter. About twenty years ago, the latter having been resumed, Sheo Singh took up his lance again, and initiated the mountain-lion, his son, in the lex talionis. He flung away the scabbard, sent his family for security to the Raja of Shahpura, and gave his mind up to vengeance. The father and son, and many other brave spirits with the same cause of revenge, carried their incursions into the very heart of Malwa, bringing back the spoils to his den at little Atoa. But though his hand was now raised against every man, he forgot not his peculiar feud (wair), and his patrimony of Nadwai yielded little to the Mahratta. But Sheo Singh was surrounded by foes, who leagued to circumvent him, and one day, while driving many a goodly buffalo to his shelter, he was suddenly beset by a body of horse placed in ambush by the Bhao. But both were superbly mounted, and they led them a chase through Mandalgarh, and were within the very verge of security, when, as Sheo Singh put his mare to the nala, she played him false and fell, and ere she recovered herself the long lance of Mahratta was through the rider. Young Dungar was more fortunate, and defying his pursuers to clear the rivulet, bound up the body of his father in his scarf, ascended the familiar path, and burnt it at midnight, amongst the family altars of Nadwai. But far from destroying, this only increased the appetite for vengeance, which has lasted till these days of peace; and, had every chieftain of Mewar acted like Dungar, the Mahratta would have had fewer of their fields to batten on to-day. His frank, but energetic answer, when the envoy mentioned the deep complaints urged [640] against him by the present manager of Nadwai, was “I must have bread!” and this they had snatched from him. But Holkar’s government, which looks not to the misery inflicted, carries loud complaints to the resident authorities, who can only decide on the principle of possession, and the abstract view of Dungar’s course of life. For myself, I do not hesitate to avow, that my regard for the chiefs of Mewar is in the ratio of their retaliation on their ‘Southron’ foe; and entering deeply into all their great and powerful grounds for resentment, I warmly espoused the cause of the ‘mountain-lion’; and as the case (through Mr. Gerald Wellesley) was left by Holkar’s government to my arbitration, I secured to the chief a part of his patrimony under their joint seal, and left him to turn his lance into a plough-share, until fresh causes for just aggression may arise. This settlement gave me another proof of the inalienable right in land granted by the ryot cultivator, and its superiority over that granted by the sovereign. There were certain rights in the soil (bhum) which Dungar’s ancestors had thus obtained, in the township of Nadwai, to which he attached a higher value than to the place itself. Dungar’s story affords a curious instance of the laws of adoption superseding, if not the rank, the fortune resulting from birthright. Sheo Singh and Daulat Singh, both sub-vassals of Begun, were brothers; the former had Nadwai, the latter Rawarda. But Daulat Singh, having no issue, adopted Salim Singh, the younger brother of Dungar, who has thus become lord of Rawarda, of nearly four thousand rupees annual rent, while Dungar’s chief place is little Atoa, and the bhum of Nadwai. Salim Singh is now in high favour with his chief of Begun, to whom he is Faujdar, or leader of the vassals. In personal appearance he has greatly the advantage of Dungar; Salim is tall and very handsome, bold in speech and of gentlemanly deportment; Dungar is compact in form, of dark complexion, rugged in feature, and bluntness itself in phrase, but perfectly good-humoured, frank, and unreserved; and as he rode by my side, he amused me with many anecdotes connected with the scenery around.

Singoli,^[4] February 17, eight and a half miles, thermometer 40°.—This town is chief of a tappa or subdivision, containing fifty-two villages, of the district of Antri, a term applied to a defile, or tract surrounded by mountains. The Antri of Mewar is fertilized by the Bamani, which finds its way through a singular diversity of country, after two considerable falls, to the Chambal, and is about thirty miles in length, reckoning from Bichor to the summit of the steppe of the plateau, by about ten miles in breadth, producing the most luxuriant crops of wheat, barley, gram, sugar-cane, and poppy; and [641] having, spread over its surface, one hundred villages and hamlets, but a section of the country will make it better understood.