CHAPTER 7
Unhealthiness of Kotah. Nanta, September 10, 1820.—A day of deliverance, which had been looked forward to by all of us as a new era in our existence. The last four months of our residence at Kotah was a continued struggle against cholera and deadly fever: never in the memory of man was such a season known. This is not a state of mind or body fit for recording passing events; and although the period of the last six months—from my arrival at Kotah in February last, to my leaving it this morning—has been one of the most eventful of my life, it has left fewer traces of these events upon my mind for notice in my journal than if I had been less occupied. The reader may be referred, for an abstract of these occurrences, to Chapter 6, which will make him sufficiently acquainted with the people amongst whom we have been living. To try back for the less important events which furnish the thread of the Personal Narrative, would be vain, suffering, whilst this journal is written, under fever and ague, and all my friends and servants in a similar plight. Though we more than once changed our ground of encampment, sickness still followed us. We got through the hot winds tolerably until the dog-days of June; but, although I had experienced every vicissitude of temperature in every part of India, I never felt anything to be compared with the few days of June at Kotah.
It was shortly after we had shifted the camp from the low paddy-fields to the embankment of the Kishor sagar, or ‘lake,’ immediately east of the city, the sky became of that transparent blue which dazzles the eye to look at. Throughout the day and night, there was not a zephyr even to stir a leaf, but the repose and stillness of death. The thermometer was 104° in the tent, and the agitation of the punkah produced [664] only a more suffocating air, from which I have fled, with a sensation bordering on madness, to the gardens at the base of the embankment of the lake. But the shade even of the tamarind or cool plantain was still less supportable. The feathered tribe, with their beaks opened, their wings flapping or hanging listlessly down, and panting for breath, like ourselves, sought in vain a cool retreat. The horses stood with heads drooping before their untasted provender. Amidst this universal stagnation of life, the only sound which broke upon the horrid stillness, was the note of the cuckoo; it was the first time I had ever heard it in India, and its cheerful sound, together with the associations it awakened, produced a delightful relief from torments which could not long be endured. We invariably remarked that the bird opened his note at the period of greatest heat, about two o’clock in the day, and continued during intervals for about an hour, when he changed his quarters and quitted us. I afterwards became more familiar with this bird, and every day in the hot weather at Udaipur, when I resided in one of the villas in the valley, I not only heard but frequently saw it.[[1]]
The reader can easily conceive the scene of our encampment; it was at the north-eastern angle of the lake, having in front that little fairy islet with its light Saracenic summer abode (p. [1521]). Gardens fringed the base of the embankment, which was bordered with lofty trees; the extended and gigantic circumvallation, over the parapets of which peeped the spires and domes of temples or mosques, breaking the uniformity, and occasionally even showing the distant and elevated land beyond the Chambal. We had also close to us a spot sacred to the manes of the many heroes of this noble family. I frequented the cenotaphs of the Haras, which, if less magnificent than those of Marwar or Mewar, or even of the head of their line of Bundi, may vie with them all in the recollections they conjure up of patriotism and fealty, and of the deadly rancour attendant on civil strife. This cluster of monuments approaches near to the city wall, but is immediately under the dam of the lake, and being enveloped in foliage, almost escapes observation. I was rejoiced to see the good order in which they were maintained, which was another of the anomalies in the regent’s character: for what can so much keep alive the proud spirit of the Haras as these trophies of their sires? But whatever the motive of the act, it is a tribute to virtue; nor could I resist an exclamation of respect to the veteran regent, who is raising a monument to the last prince, which, if it survive to distant times, will afford room to some future [665] traveller to say, that, with Maharao Ummed Singh, Kotah appears to have attained the summit of its power. Nor should I deny myself the praise of having something to do with this harmless piece of vanity; for I procured for the regent free permission from the Rana of Mewar to take from the marble quarry at Kankroli[[2]] whatever suited his purpose, without price or duty: a request he was too proud to make himself since their ancient quarrel. We had also the range of Madho Singh’s magnificent gardens, of many acres in extent, abounding in exotic flowers and fruits, with parterres of rose-trees, each of many roods of land. But what were all these luxuries conjoined with cholera morbus, and tap tijari, ‘tertian fever,’ and every other fever, around us? But even these physical ills were nothing compared to the moral evils which it was my duty to find remedies for or to mitigate; and they were never adverted to in the many despatches addressed, during our residence in this petit enfer, to supreme authority.
The enthusiast may imagine how delightful travelling must be amongst such interesting races; to visit the ruins of ancient greatness, and to read their history in their monuments; to march along the margin of such streams as the Chambal or the Bamani; to be escorted by these gallant men, to be the object of their courtesy and friendship, and to benefit the condition of the dependant class; but the price of this enjoyment was so high that few would voluntarily pay it, namely, a perpetuity of ill-health. Fortunately, however, for ourselves and our country, if these offices are neither sinecures nor beds of roses, we do not make them beds of thorns; there is a heart-stirring excitation amidst such scenes, which keeps the powers of mind and body alert: a feeling which is fortunately more contagious than cholera, and communicable to all around. How admirably was this feeling exemplified this morning! Could my reader but have beheld the soldiers of my escort and other establishments, as they were ferried over the Chambal, he would have taken them for ghosts making the trajet of the Styx; there was not one of them who had not been in the gripe of pestilential fever or ague. Some of them had had cholera, and half of them had enlarged spleens. Yet, although their muskets were too heavy for them, there were neither splenetic looks nor peevish expressions. It was as delightful as it was wonderful to see the alacrity, even of the bedridden, to leave their ills behind them east of the Chambal.
Scarcely any place can be more unhealthy than Kotah during the monsoon. With the rise of the Chambal, whose waters filtrate through the fissures of the rock, the [666] wells are filled with mineral poison and the essence of decomposed vegetation.[[3]] All those in the low ground at our first encampment were overflowed from this cause; and the surface of each was covered with an oily pellicle of metallic lustre, whose colours were prismatic, varying, with position or reflection, from shades of a pigeon’s breast (which it most resembled), to every tint of blue blending with gold. It is the same at Udaipur during the periodical rains, and with similar results, intermittent and tertian fevers, from which, as I said, not a man, European or native, escaped. They are very obstinate, and though not often fatal, are difficult to extirpate, yielding only to calomel, which perhaps generates a train of ills.
Meeting with Zālim Singh.
A Restive Elephant.
We passed the town of Kanari, belonging to Raj Gulab Singh, Jhala, a relation of [667] the regent, and one of the Omras of Kotah. It is a thriving comfortable place, and the pinnacled mahall of the Raj gave to it an air of dignity as well as of the picturesque. Our route to Nanta[[5]] was over a rich and highly cultivated plain, studded with mango-groves; which do not surprise us, since we know it is the family estate of the regent. The patrimonial abode is, therefore, much cherished, and is the frequent residence of his son Madho Singh, by whom I was met half-way between Kanari, and conducted to the family dwelling.