Heaped like a host, in battle overthrown.
An Old Fakīr.
Udaipur, March 8, 1822.—Here I am once more in the capital of Hindupati (chief of the Hindu race), from which no occurrence shall move me until I go to “eat the air” of my native land. I require repose, for the last fifteen years of my life have been one continuous tissue of toil and accident, such as are narrated in these records of a few of my many wanderings. The bow must be unbent, or it will snap, and the time for journalizing must cease with everything else under the sun. I halted a few days at Merta, and found my house nearly finished, the garden looking beautiful, the aru or peach-tree, the seo or apple, the santara,[[28]] narangi, and nimbu, or various orange and lime-trees, all in full blossom, and showing the potent influence of Surya, in these regions; the sharifa or sitaphal (fruit of Sita), or custard-apple, the anar, the kela, pomegranate, plantain, and various indigenous fruits, were all equally forward. These plants are mostly from Agra, Lucknow, or Cawnpore; but some of the finest peaches are the produce of those I planted at Gwalior,—I may say their grandchildren. When I left Gwalior in 1817, I brought with me the stones of several peach-trees, and planted them in the garden of Rang-piyari, my residence at Udaipur; and more delicious or more abundant fruit I never saw. The stones of these I again put in the new garden at Merta, and these again exhibit fruit, but it will require another year to prove whether they maintain the character they held in the plains of Raru, or in this city. The vegetables were equally thriving: I never saw finer crops of Prussian-blues,[[29]] of kobis, phul-kobis, or cabbages and cauliflowers, celery, and all that belongs to the kitchen-garden, and which my Rajput friends declare far superior to their indigenous race of sag, or greens; the Diwanji (Rana) has monopolized the celery, which he pronounces the prince of vegetables. I had also got my cutter for the Udaisagar, and we promised ourselves many delightful days, sailing amidst its islets and fishing in its stream. “But in all this was there vanity”: poor Carey lies under the sod; Duncan has been struggling on, and is just about to depart for the Cape of Good Hope; Patrick, who was left at Kotah, writes me dismal accounts of his health and his solitude, and I am left almost alone, the ghost of what I was. “I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour I had laboured to do; and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit!” And such I fear will it prove with more important works than these amusements of the hour; but it were certain death to stay, and the doctor insists on my sending in ‘a sick certificate,’ and putting my house in order for [766] departure. The month of May is fixed, a resolution which has filled the Rana with grief; but he “gives me leave only for three years, and his sister, Chandji Bai, desires me to bring back a wife that she may love.”
I would willingly have dispensed with the honours of a public entrée; but here, even health must bend to forms and the laws of the Rajputs; and the Rana, Prince Jawan Singh, and all the Sesodia chivalry, advanced to welcome our return. “Ap ghar aye! You have come home!” was the simple and heartfelt expression of the Rana, as he received my reverential salaam; but he kindly looked round, and missed my companions, for Waugh Sahib and Doctor Sahib were both great favourites; and, last but not least, when he saw me bestride Javadia, he asked, “where was Bajraj?” but the ‘royal-steed’ (his gift) was no more, and lies entombed at Kotah. “Hae! hae! alas! alas! (exclaimed Prithinath); bara sochpan balamanukh cha, great grief, for he was a good man.”[[30]] The virtues of Bajraj were the subject of conversation until we reached the ‘gate of the sun’ (Surajpol); when the Rana “gave me leave to go home,” and he continued his promenade.
Bajrāj, the Horse.
In a few days I shall leave the capital for the villa of the Hara Rani, sister of the Kotah prince, and whose bracelet also I have had, the symbol of adoption as her brother. To all their customs, to all their sympathies, and numerous acts of courtesy and kindness, which have made this not a strange land to me, I am about to bid farewell; whether a final one, is written in that book which for wise purposes is sealed to mortal vision; but wherever I go, whatever days I may number, nor place nor time can ever weaken, far less obliterate, the remembrance of the valley of Udaipur.[[31]]
[1]. [Sir Henry Durand, then Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjāb, met his death by a similar accident at Tānk in the Dera Ismāīl Khan District, on January 1, 1871.]
[2]. [Begūn was, by the Author’s intervention, restored to the Rāwat, Maha Singh II., in 1822. A couple of years later, Maha Singh gave up the estate to his son, Kishor Singh, and became a religious mendicant at the shrines of Nāthdwāra and Kānkroli. But when Kishor Singh was, for some unknown reason, murdered in cold blood by a Brāhman in 1839, he resumed the management, and lived till 1860 (Erskine ii. A. 95).]
[3]. [For a curious sketch of Chitor by a gunner in Aurangzeb’s service, see J. Fryer, New Account of India and Persia, vol. iii. ed. 1915, p. 170.]