With this ambulatory court I moved everywhere within this region, constantly employed in surveying till 1812, when Sindhia’s court became stationary. It was then I formed my plans for obtaining a knowledge of those countries into which I could not personally penetrate [5].
Survey Parties.
The other party was conducted by a most valuable man, Madari Lal, who became a perfect adept in these expeditions of geographical discovery, and other knowledge resulting therefrom. There is not a district of any consequence in the wide space before the reader which was not traversed by this spirited individual, whose qualifications for such complicated and hazardous journeys were never excelled. Ardent, persevering, prepossessing, and generally well-informed, he made his way when others might have perished.[[15]]
From these remote regions the best-informed native inhabitants were, by persuasion and recompense, conducted to me; and I could at all times, in the Mahratta camp at Gwalior, from 1812 to 1817, have provided a native of the valley of the Indus, the deserts of Dhat, Umrasumra, or any of the States of Rajasthan.
The precision with which Kasids and other public conveyers of letters, in countries where posts are little used, can detail the peculiarities of a long line of route, and the accuracy of their distances would scarcely be credited in Europe. I have no hesitation in asserting that if a correct estimate were obtained of the measured [6] coss of a country, a line might be laid down upon a flat surface with great exactitude. I have heard it affirmed that it was the custom of the old Hindu governments to have measurements made of the roads from town to town, and that the Abu Mahatma[[16]] contains a notice of an instrument for that purpose. Indeed, the singular coincidence between lines measured by the perambulator and the estimated distances of the natives is the best proof that the latter are deduced from some more certain method than mere computation.
I never rested satisfied with the result of one set of my parties, with the single exception of Madari’s, always making the information of one a basis for the instruction of another, who went over the same ground; but with additional views and advantages, and with the aid of the natives brought successively by each, till I exhausted every field.
Thus, in a few years, I had filled several volumes with lines of route throughout this space; and having many frontier and intermediate points, the positions of which were fixed, a general outline of the result was constructed, wherein all this information was laid down. I speak more particularly of the western States, as the central portion, or that watered by the Chambal and its tributary streams, whether from the elevated Aravalli on the west, or from the Vindhya mountains on the south, has been personally surveyed and measured in every direction, with an accuracy sufficient for every political or military purpose, until the grand trigonometrical survey from the peninsula shall be extended throughout India. These countries form an extended plain to the Sutlej north, and west to the Indus, rendering the amalgamation of geographical materials much less difficult than where mountainous regions intervene.
After having laid down these varied lines in the outline described, I determined to check and confirm its accuracy by recommencing the survey on a new plan, viz. trigonometrically.
My parties were again despatched to resume their labours over fields now familiar to them. They commenced from points whose positions were fixed (and my knowledge enabled me to give a series of such), from each of which, as a centre, they collected every radiating route to every town within the distance of twenty miles. The points selected were generally such as to approach equilateral [7] triangles; and although to digest the information became a severe toil, the method will appear, even to the casual observer, one which must throw out its own errors; for these lines crossed in every direction, and consequently corrected each other. By such means did I work my way in those unknown tracts, and the result is in part before the reader. I say, in part; for my health compels me reluctantly to leave out much which could be combined from ten folios of journeys extending throughout these regions.