which she had treated me. I concluded with again advising her to place confidence in Sir D. Ochterlony and Colonel Raper, and to do her utmost to secure their favourable opinions. Having thus sent her the best advice I could, I gave the vakeel his present and certificate of good behaviour. I had been so much dissatisfied with him in the former part of the march that, I believe, he had very faint expectations of either one or the other; so that nothing could be more profound than his bows and professions of service in taking leave.

February 5.-The horsemen attended me next morning as far as Bandursindree, a small and poor town in the little principality of Kishenghur, where we found some servants whom Mr. Moore, the Resident at Ajmere, had sent to receive me, and the jemautdar of the village, who said he had orders from the Raja to provide every thing for me.-From Bandursindree to Kishenghur was, I found, not more than eight miles, and as we had only come a very short stage this day, and as time was precious with me, I made arrangements for proceeding to Kishenghur on the Sunday. Had I been able to obtain good information of the road, I should have gone through, this day, the whole distance from Hirsowlee. I here dismissed my Jyepoor bearers, having received a powerful reinforcement from Government, through the kindness of Captain Burns, head of the commissariat of Nusseerabad, who, having heard of the desertion of my people at Jyepoor, forwarded twenty men to meet me. At Nusseerabad no ordinary bearers are to be hired, but the commissariat keep forty or fifty in their pay for Government service; and the letters which Government had written concerning me, directed them to supply me with every assistance and comfort in their power.

February 6.-From Bandursindree we went between four and five coss to Kishenghur. The country half-way continued open and barren. Afterwards, without ceasing to be barren, it was a good deal covered by thorny trees; and at length we ascended a

rugged chain of granite hills which brought us to Kishenghur, with its walls of solid and substantial masonry, its castle on the mountain top, and its gardens fenced with hedges of prickly pear, the whole something like Jyepoor in miniature. The tents were pitched in a stony and dusty plain, but in rather a pretty situation without the walls, and enjoying a view of the Raja's palace, a large but rudely built fort on the banks of a fine pool of water, with a margin of green corn-fields, and a back-ground of bare and rugged hills. We found nothing ready either for ourselves or for our animals. The people, though civil, would furnish no supplies without the Raja's orders, and he had married a new wife the day before, and nobody dared to apply to him. The promises of payment brought, however, a scanty supply, and soon afterwards, about ten o'clock, a message came from the Raja in Divan, with his order to supply whatever was wanted, and an enquiry whether I wished him to call on me. I returned for answer that I had no design to give him that trouble, and that I intended to call on him at any time in the afternoon that suited him, adding that it was not my custom to go out in the heat of the day, and that I was obliged to leave Kishenghur early in the morning. The messenger said he would bring me word immediately, but never returned, a circumstance which the servants ascribed to the Raja's having by this time dosed himself with opium. The result saved me some trouble, and was only remarkable as being inconsistent with the modesty and civility of the first message. The Raja was described to me as a young man of twenty-five or twenty-six, of a dissipated character; his territory is small and barren, but his expenses must be very trifling except so far as his many relations, for all his clan consider themselves as his kinsmen, are burdensome to him. At night he sent me some guides for our next day's journey, and some coolies whom I did not want; but, to my surprise, did not send an escort which I had asked for the horses, who were to be sent on half-way; he, however, afterwards thought better of it, since when we set out, a dozen horsemen

any

presented themselves, but too late to be of service. The corn, in the neigbourhood of Kishenghur, I was sorry to see a good deal blighted, as if with frost after rain. We had had no rain which could have done mischief, and this was the first blight which I had seen in Rajpootana. The soil is very barren, but water is found every where, so that with industry and good fortune plenty may be obtained. On these light soils blight is, I believe, always most

fatal.

CHAPTER XXIII.

AJMERE TO NEEMUCH.

Ajmere-Remarkable Fortress-Mussulman place of Pilgrimage-Encampment of Brinjar. rees-Nusseerabad-Bhats and Charuns-Captain Todd-Boolees-Bheel manner of fishing -Bheels-Ranah of Oodeypoor-Chittore-Anecdote of Rannee-Marble Tower-Night Blindness.

FEBRUARY 7.-We marched to Ajmere, about seventeen miles. The country was as barren as ever, but more hilly, and saved from a wearisome uniformity by clusters of thorny trees and thickets of the cactus. Among these we found a considerable number of camels grazing, and were passed by some irregular troops and some sepoys in red, and pretty nearly equipped like those in the company's service, who said they belonged to the Maharaja Sindia. What they could be doing here now that he had ceded all his territories in this neighbourhood and within a hundred miles of it, I could not conjecture. Dr. Smith, who put the question, had forgotten this fact, or would have asked them where they were going, and I, having supposed that they belonged to the company's service, had ridden on before and did not hear the question or reply. They were all infantry; the irregulars had matchlocks, swords, and shields; the regulars only differed from our troops as having, which our men frequently carry when on a journey, sabres in addition to their musquets and bayonets. The cactus or prickly pear grows very strong on these barren hills. Dr. Clarke in his travels through the Holy Land speaks of it as likely in certain latitudes to afford an impenetrable fortification, and I now asked Dr. Smith if it were ever used in the "bound hedge" of an Indian

town. He answered that it was found very easy to cut down either with axe or sabre; and that nothing answered so well as a thick plantation of bamboos, which, though not prickly, are impenetrable, and can be neither burnt nor cut down without great loss of time and risque from the fire of the besieged. The union of the two, as in the fortification of Marapoor, which I have previously mentioned, would seem the best.

I was disappointed in the first view of Ajmere, which I had expected to find a large city, but which is only a well-built, moderate sized town, on the slope of a high hill, or what really deserves the name of mountain. The buildings are chiefly white-washed, and the surrounding rocks have some thorny trees and brushwood on them which hide their barrenness, and make a good background to the little ruinous Mosques and Mussulman tombs, which are scattered round the circuit of this holy city. Above, on the mountain top, is a very remarkable fortress, called Taraghur, nearly two miles in circuit, but, from its irregular shape and surface not capable of containing more than 1200 men. It is, however, a magnificent place of arms in many respects. The rock is in most parts quite inaccessible; it has an abundant supply of good water, in all seasons, from tanks and cisterns cut in the live rock. There are bomb-proofs to a vast extent, and store-houses like wells, where corn, ghee, &c. used to be kept, and, with very little improvement from European skill, it might easily be made a second Gibraltar. It is, however, no part of the policy of the British Government in India to rely on fortresses, and the works are now fast going to decay.

The main attraction of Ajmere in the eyes of its Mussulman visitors, is the tomb of Shekh Kajah Mowûd Deen, a celebrated saint, whose miracles are renowned all over India. The Emperor Acbar, great and wise man as he was, and suspected of placing little faith in the doctrines of Islam, made nevertheless a pilgrimage on foot to this place to implore, at the saint's tomb, the blessing of male offspring. The crowd of pilgrims who met us, or whom we