[16]. [Sāwan sudi tīj, third of the bright half of the month Sāwan (July to August), a festival celebrated throughout North India.]
[17]. [About 45 miles north of Udaipur city.]
[18]. In the Personal Narrative.
[19]. Although Bhilwara has not attained that high prosperity my enthusiasm anticipated, yet the philanthropic Heber records that in 1825 (three years after I had left the country) it exhibited “a greater appearance of trade, industry, and moderate but widely diffused wealth and comfort, than he had witnessed since he left Delhi[Delhi]” [Diary, ed. 1861, ii. 56 f.]. The record of the sentiments of the inhabitants towards me, as conveyed by the bishop, was gratifying, though their expression could excite no surprise in any one acquainted with the characters and sensibilities of these people. [The author’s anticipation of the prosperity of this town have not been completely realized; but it is still an important centre of trade, noted for the manufacture of cooking utensils, and possessing a ginning factory and a cotton-press (Erskine ii. A. 97 f.).]
[20]. A literal translation of this curious piece of Hindu legislation will be found at the end of the Appendix. If not drawn up with all the dignity of the legal enactments of the great governments of the West, it has an important advantage in conciseness; the articles cannot be misinterpreted, and require no lawyer to expound them.
[21]. "Kampani Sahib ke namak ke zor se“ is a common phrase of our native soldiery; and ”Dohai! Kampani ki!" is an invocation or appeal against injustice; but I never heard this watchword so powerfully applied as when a Sub. with the Resident’s escort in 1812. One of our men, a noble young Rajput about nineteen years of age, and six feet high, had been sent with an elephant to forage in the wilds of Narwar. A band of at least fifty predatory horsemen assailed him, and demanded the surrender of the elephant, which he met by pointing his musket and giving them defiance. Beset on all sides, he fired, was cut down, and left for dead, in which state he was found, and brought to camp upon a litter. One sabre-cut had opened the back entirely across, exposing the action of the viscera, and his arms and wrists were barbarously hacked: yet he was firm, collected, and even cheerful; and to a kind reproach for his rashness, he said, "What would you have said, Captain Sahib, had I surrendered the Company’s musket (Kampani ki banduq) without fighting?" From their temperate habits, the wound in the back did well; but the severed nerves of the wrists brought on a lockjaw of which he died. The Company have thousands who would alike die for their banduq. It were wise to cherish such feelings.
[22]. [An instance of the practice of ‘sitting dharna’ to enforce a claim (Yule-Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. 315 f.).]
[23]. See p. 380.
[25]. It will fill up the picture of the times to relate the revenge. When Jamshid, the infamous lieutenant of the infamous Amir Khan, established his headquarters at Udaipur, which he daily devastated, Sardar Singh, then in power, was seized and confined as a hostage for the payment of thirty thousand rupees demanded of the Rana. The surviving brothers of the murdered minister Somji ‘purchased their foe’ with the sum demanded, and anticipated his clansmen, who were on the point of effecting his liberation. The same sun shone on the head of Sardar, which was placed as a signal of revenge over the gateway of Rampiyari’s palace. I had the anecdotes from the minister Siyahal, one of the actors in these tragedies, and a relative of the brothers, who were all swept away by the dagger. A similar fate often seemed to him, though a brave man, inevitable during these resumptions; which impression, added to the Rana’s known inconstancy of favour, robbed him of half his energies.