6. That is to say, the well-cylinder is gradually sunk by its own weight, aided, if necessary, by heavy additional weights piled upon it. The sinking often takes many months, and is continued till a suitable resting-place is found. The cylinder is built on a strong ring of timber. Indian bridge-piers commonly rest on wells of this kind. The ring is sometimes made of iron. Such a method of sinking is possible only in deep alluvium, free from rock, and consequently had not been seen in the Sāgar and Nerbudda territories.
7. In the original edition Dīg is illustrated by four coloured plates. The buildings are all the work of Sūraj Mal, the virtual founder of the Bharatpur dynasty, between A.D. 1725 and 1763. The palace wants, say Fergusson, 'the massive character of the fortified palaces of other Rājpūt states, but for grandeur of conception and beauty of detail it surpasses them all. . . . The greatest defect of the palace is that the style, when it was erected, was losing its true form of lithic propriety. The forms of its pillars and their ornaments are better suited for wood or metal than for stone architecture.' It is a 'fairy creation'. (History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, ed. 1910, vol. ii, pp. 178- 81.)
8. On these topics see the 'Journey through the Kingdom of Oude', passim. The composition of the Bengal army has been much changed.
9. The quotation is from the end of chapter 14 of the Germania of Tacitus.
10. This picture of English roads infested by clergymen turned highwaymen is not to be found in the ordinary histories.
11. The Act alluded to probably is 14 Elizabeth, c. 5. Other Acts of the same reign dealing with vagrancy and the first poor-law are 39 Elizabeth, c. 3, and 43 Elizabeth, c. 2 (A.D. 1601). In 1595 vagrancy had assumed such alarming proportions in London that a provost- marshal was appointed to give the wanderers the short shrift of martial law. The course of legislation on the subject is summarized in the article 'Poor Laws' in Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1904), and the articles 'Poor-Law and Vagrancy' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1910. See also the chapter entitled 'The England of Elizabeth' in Green's History of the English People.
12. As already observed, chapter 29, note 12, the term Gosāin is by no means restricted to the special devotees of Siva; many Gosāins—for example, those in Bengal and those at Gokul in the Mathurā district—are followers of Vishnu. The term 'fakīr' is vaguely used, and often applied to Hindoos.
13. Even still, something of this unquiet spirit hovers about India, and the incompatibility between the ideas of twentieth-century Englishmen and those of Indian peoples whose mental attitude approaches that of Europeans of the twelfth century is a perennial source of unrest.
[CHAPTER 56]
Govardhan, the Scene of Krishna's Dalliance with the Milkmaids.