way.

Ameer Khân for justice or damages. The Nawâb answered that he had no sufficient army to enforce his authority over so distant a possession, and that he wished that the English would take the district in farm, pay him a fair rent, and govern it in their own This offer was accepted. The moonshee, though administering justice in the name of the Nawâb, is appointed by Colonel Lumley, and there is a jemautdar with twenty of our horse quartered in the town to secure it and its neighbourhood. This jemautdar, who called on me, is one of the finest old men I have seen, with a grey beard flowing over his breast. He is a Mussulman, and, as I should have supposed from his tall stature, not of this country, but from the north of Hindostan. There is a very beautiful boolee in the town, built within these few years from a legacy left by a rich merchant. It has a noble staircase, and a verandah of rich Saracenic arches round the wall about half-way down. The water is now very low, but in the rains it is full nearly to the brim. These fine boolees seem peculiar to India west of the Jumna, at least I have never met with any like them to the eastward of that river. The practice of having steps down to the edge of the water, as well as corridors and porticos round the welis at certain heights, arises from the religious observances of both Mussulmans and Hindoos, which make washing an inseparable accompaniment of prayer. As works of art and taste they are eminently beautiful, but they are strangely deficient in any mechanical aids for raising the water. No means are used but the small brazen lotee which every body carries, or at most an earthen jar or skin, the former of which is let down by a long string from the top of one of the galleries, while the other must be carried down to the water's edge and brought up again on the head or back. There is indeed a rude pulley at the top, but this is only used in irrigating the fields, and to bring up the large leathern bucket which is drawn by oxen.

CHAPTER XXIV.

NEEMUCH TO BARODA.

Neemuch-Character of Rajpoots and Bheels-Good effects of British rule-Boras-Confirmation—Pertaubghur-Manner of collecting Opium-Heat, and parched state of the Country-Festival of the Hoolee-Bheel Huts-Palace of Banswarra-Murder of Female Infants-Visit from the Rawul-Jain Temple-Sham-fight of Bheels-Visit from the Raja of Barreah-Dreadful Famine-Brinjarrees.

FEBRUARY 25.-From Neemhaira to Neemuch is between seventeen and eighteen miles, over a more open and rather better cultivated country. Neemuch itself differs in no conspicuous respect from any of the other large cantonments of the Bengal army. It is a stationary camp of thatched bungalows and other buildings, open on all sides, and surrounded by a fine plain for the performance of military evolutions. The soldiers are employed in building a sort of fort, as a shelter to the women, children, and stores, in time of need. There is a fine house here built by Sir David Ochterlony, and well furnished, but which he has never occupied. These buildings, with the surrounding slip of Meidân, constitute the entire British territory in this neighbourhood, the small town of Neemuch, and most of the surrounding country, belonging to Sindia. The cantonment itself is in fact on his ground, but was sold or ceded by him, though with considerable reluctance, at the 'last peace. Not even Swabia, or the Palatinate, can offer a more chequered picture of interlaced sovereignties than Meywar, and indeed all Malwah, of which Meywar, in common parlance, is always reckoned a part. In the

heart of the territory which on our English maps bears Sindia's colour, are many extensive districts belonging to Holkar, Ameer Khân, the Raja of Kotah, &c.; and here scarcely any two villages together belong to the same sovereign. Sindia, however, though all this is usually reckoned beyond his boundary, has the lion's share. Never was an arrangement better calculated to ensure protection and impunity to robbers, even if there had not been abundance of jungle and inaccessible rocks, inhabited by a race (the Bheels) whose avowed profession, from the remotest antiquity, has been plunder. The presence of a powerful army in the midst of such a territory, under officers anxious and interested in the maintenance of good order, has of course contributed greatly to repress these disorders, and must, as I should apprehend, be regarded as a real benefit and blessing to the country by all its peaceable and industrious inhabitants.

I was very hospitably entertained at Neemuch by Captain Macdonald, political agent for this part of India, and brother to Major Macdonald Kinneir, whose travels in Asia were published some years ago. He was a long time Aide-de-camp and secretary to Sir John Malcolm. I derived much valuable information from him respecting the route to Bombay, which is all under his controul, and which he had himself surveyed and laid down in a new direction,—the route to Saugor, the inhabitants of this and the neighbouring countries, and their rulers. There was no doubt of the route to Saugor (which, in my anxiety to rejoin my wife and children, I had still a great hankering after,) through Bundelcund and Mirzapoor being perfectly safe and practicable, though I should latterly find the heat very oppressive in marching, and almost intolerable in a palanqueen. Nor, indeed, did it appear that there were means for laying a Dâk in that direction, so that I could not hope to arrive on the river till the 20th or 21st of April. As to the facilities of proceeding from Mirzapoor by water, I found two opposite statements; some maintaining that the passage might, by the help of the stream, be made in six weeks; while one officer,

who said he had himself performed it, declared that it would, from the delay occasioned by the southern monsoon, occupy at least two months or ten weeks, even supposing, which was not always to be expected, that the Moorshedabad river was open, and that I was spared the detour by Chundna and the Sunderbunds, which would make three weeks more. On the whole, unless I determined to go by Dâk from Benares to Calcutta, a measure not to be adopted in April or May without real necessity, I found that I should gain but little time by giving up Bombay, while by doing so, the sacrifice of probable usefulness and future convenience which I should make would be very great. I therefore made up my mind, though with a heavy heart, to go on, in the hope that a kind Providence would still continue to watch over those dear objects to meet whom in safety, after my long absence, was at present my chief earthly wish. I determined, however, on relinquishing my visit to Mhow, because Captain Macdonald assured me both that the earlier in April I left the hot country of Guzerat the better, and also that after the middle of that month I should find considerable difficulty in obtaining a passage by sea from Surat to Bombay.

The character of the Rajpoots, and their Government, Captain Macdonald represented in unfavourable terms. The people who are grievously oppressed, and have been, till very lately, engaged in incessant war, have the vices of slaves added to those of robbers, with no more regard to truth than the natives of our own provinces, exceeding them in drunkenness, fondness for opium, and sensuality, while they have a blood-thirstiness from which the great mass of Hindoos are very far removed. Their courage, however, and the gallant efforts they made to defend their territories against the Maharattas, deserve high praise; and some effects of a favourable nature have been produced among them by the intercourse which they have had with the English. The specimens of our nation which they have hitherto seen, have, on the whole, been very favourable. None of the King's regiments have yet

béen sent here, and few Europeans of any description except officers. They have, therefore, seen little of the drunkenness and violence of temper which have made the natives of our own provinces at once fear and despise a Feringee soldier, and they still, Captain Macdonald says, admire us more and wonder more at the difference of wisdom, morals, and policy, which they perceive between us and them, than any other people with whom he has had intercourse in India. And he is of opinion that their present state of feeling affords by no means an unfavourable soil for the labours of a missionary.

The Bheels were regarded both by him and the other officers with whom I conversed, as unquestionably the original inhabitants of the country, and driven to their present fastnesses and their present miserable way of life by the invasion of those tribes, wherever they may have come from, who profess the religion of Brahma. This the Rajpoots themselves, in this part of India, virtually allow, it being admitted in the traditional history of most of their principal cities and fortresses, that they were founded by such or such Bheel chiefs, and conquered from them by such and such children of the Sun. Their manners are described as resembling, in very many respects, those of the Rajmahal Puharrees. And, thieves and savages as they are, I found that the officers with whom I conversed, thought them on the whole a better race than their conquerors. Their word is more to be depended on, they are of a franker and livelier character, their women are far better treated and enjoy more influence, and though they shed blood without scruple in cases of deadly feud, or in the regular way of a foray, they are not vindictive or inhospitable under other circumstances, and several British officers have, with perfect safety, gone hunting and fishing into their country, without escort or guide, except what these poor savages themselves cheerfully furnished for a little brandy. This is the more touching, since on this frontier nothing has been done for them, and they have been treated, I now found, with unmingled severity. In the South, where Sir