Ameer of Khyrpoor.
After what I have already stated, our interview with Meer Roostum Khan may be well imagined: he received us under a canopy of silk, seated on a cushion of cloth of gold. He was surrounded by the members of his family, forty of whom (males), descended in a right line from his father, are yet alive. There was more state and show than at Hydrabad, but as little attention to order or silence. We exchanged the usual complimentary speeches of like occasions. I thanked his Highness for the uniform attention and hospitality which we had received. Meer Roostum Khan is about fifty; his beard and hair were quite white, and the expression of his countenance, as well as his manners, were peculiarly mild. He and his relatives were too much taken up with our uniforms and faces to say much; and he begged us to return in the evening, when there would be less bustle and confusion, to which we readily assented. I gave him my watch before leaving, and sent him a brace of pistols and a kaleidescope, with various articles of European manufacture, with which he was highly delighted. The crowd was hardly to be penetrated, but very orderly: they shouted as we approached; and nothing seemed to amuse them so much as the feathers of our hats. “Such cocks!” was literally the expression. For about 200 yards from the palace (if I can use such a term for the mud buildings of Sinde) there was a street of armed men, and among them stood thirty or forty persons with halberds, the foresters or huntsmen of the household.
Audience of leave.
In the evening we again visited the Ameer, and found him seated on a terrace spread with Persian carpets, and surrounded, as before, by his numerous relatives. He made a long address to me regarding his respect for the British government, and said that I had of course learned his sentiments from his vizier. He looked to our Mihmandar from Hydrabad, who I found had been doing every thing in his power to prevent our meeting at all, and then changed the conversation. The Ameer asked innumerable questions about England and its power, remarking that we were not formerly so military a nation; and he had heard that a few hundred years ago we went naked and painted our bodies. On our religion he was very inquisitive; and when I informed him that I had read the Koran, he made me repeat the “Kuluma,” or creed, in Persian and Arabic, to his inexpressible delight. He said that our greatness had risen from a knowledge of mankind, and attending to other people’s concerns as well as our own. He examined my sword, a small cavalry sabre, and remarked that it would not do much harm; but I rejoined, that the age of fighting with this weapon had passed, which drew a shout and a sigh from many present. There was so much mildness in all that the Ameer said that I could not believe we were in a Belooche court. He expressed sorrow that we could not stay a month with him; but since we were resolved to proceed, we must take his state barge, and the son of his vizier, to the frontier, and accept the poor hospitality of a Belooche soldier, meaning himself, so long as we were in the Khyrpoor territory. I must mention that the hospitality, which he so modestly named, consisted of eight or ten sheep, with all sorts of provisions for 150 people daily, and that while at Khyrpoor he sent for our use, twice a day, a meal of seventy-two dishes. They consisted of pillaos and other native viands. The cookery was rich, and some of them delicious. They were served up in silver. We quitted Khyrpoor with regret, after the attentions which we had received. Before starting, the Ameer and his family sent to us two daggers, and two beautiful swords with belts ornamented by large masses of gold. The blade of one of them was valued at 80l. To these were added many cloths and native silks; also a purse of a thousand rupees, which I did not accept, excusing myself by the remark that I required nothing to make me remember the kindness of Meer Roostum Khan.
Sindian rule.
Mr. Elphinstone has remarked, “that the chiefs of Sinde appear to be barbarians of the rudest stamp, without any of the barbarous virtues,” and I fear that there is too much truth in the character, though the Khyrpoor family exhibited little to show themselves deserving of the stigma; but the chiefs of this country live entirely for themselves. They wallow in wealth, while their people are wretched. Professing an enthusiastic attachment to the religion of Mahommed, they have not even a substantial mosque in their territories; and at Hydrabad, where the town stands on rock, and indeed every where, they pray in temples of mud, and seem ignorant of elegance or comfort in all that concerns domestic arrangement. The Beloochees are a particularly savage race of people, but they are brave barbarians. From childhood they are brought up in arms; and I have seen some of the sons of chiefs who had not attained the age of four or five years strutting about with a shield and a sword of small size, given by the parents to instil into them, at that early period, the relish for war. This tribe composes but a small portion of the Sindian population; and while they are execrated by the peaceable classes of the community for their imperious conduct, they, on the other hand, hate the princes by whom they are governed. It would be difficult to conceive a more unpopular rule, with all classes of their subjects, than that of the Ameers of Sinde: nor is the feeling disguised; many a fervent hope did we hear expressed, in every part of the country, that we were the forerunners of conquest, the advance-guard of a conquering army. The persons of the Ameers are secure from danger by the number of slaves which they entertain around their persons. These people are called “Khaskelees,” and enjoy the confidence of their masters, with a considerable share of power: they are hereditary slaves, and a distinct class of the community, who marry only among themselves.
Bukkur.
We marched to Bukkur on the morning of the 19th, which is a fortress fifteen miles from Khyrpoor, situated on an insulated rock of flint on the Indus, with the town of Roree on one side and Sukkur on the other. It was not to be supposed that the Ameer would give us permission to visit this fancied bulwark of his frontier, and I did not press a demand which I saw was far from agreeable; but we had good opportunities of examining the place while passing it, both on shore and on the river. The island is about 800 yards long, of an oval shape, almost entirely occupied by the fortification, which looks more European than most Indian works: it is a beautiful object from the banks of the Indus; its towers are mostly shaded by large full grown trees, and the tall date drops its weeping leaves on the mosques and walls. There are several other islets near it, on one of which stands the shrine of Khaju Khizr, a holy Mahommedan, under a dome that contributes to the beauty of the scene. The Indus rolls past Bukkur in two streams, each of 400 yards wide, and the waters lash the rocks which confine them with noise and violence. During the swell, the navigation of this part of the river is dangerous, though the boatmen of Bukkur are both expert and daring. The town of Roree, which faces Bukkur, stands on a precipice of flint forty feet high, and some of its houses, which are lofty, overhang the Indus. The inhabitants of these can draw up water from their windows; but a cut road in the rock supplies the citizens with this necessary of life without risking their lives. The opposite bank of Sukkur is not precipitous like that of Roree. A precious relic, the lock of Mahommed’s hair, enclosed in a golden box, attracts the Mahommedan pilgrim to Bukkur, though the inhabitants are chiefly Hindoos.
Grave predictions.
On the banks of the Indus we had a curious interview in the evening after our arrival with the Vizier from Khyrpoor, who had been sent by Meer Roostum Khan to escort us thus far, and see that we were furnished with boats. After requesting to be received privately, he renewed the subject of our first conversation, and said that he had been instructed by his master to propose a solemn treaty of friendship with the British government on any terms that might be named: he then ran over the list of neighbouring states which owed their existence to an alliance,—the Chief of the Daodpootras, the Rawul of Jaysulmeer, and the Rajah of Beecaneer, &c. &c. and then concluded with a peroration full of gravity, that it was foretold by astronomers, and recorded in his books, that the English would in time possess all India, a prediction which both Meer Roostum and himself felt satisfied would come to pass, when the British would ask why the chiefs of Khyrpoor had not come forward with an offer of allegiance. I tried to remove, but without effect, the sad prognostications of the minister, and declared my incompetency to enter on such weighty matters as a treaty between the states, without authority and before receiving a written statement under the Ameer’s seal. I said that I would make known the wishes that had been expressed to my government, which would be gratified to hear they had such friends, which seemed to please the diplomatist; he begged that I would bear in mind what had passed, and exacted a promise that I would write to him when gone, and so water the tree of friendship, that the object might be ultimately effected,—“for the stars and heaven proclaimed the fortune of the English!”