ance so penurious that he and his family were in want of the absolute necessaries of life. The wretched inhabitants of these countries were subjected to organized and unsparing extortion, compared with which the exactions of their Moosulman rulers were just and liberal. The government cannot be said to have been oppressive, for there was really no government at all except the revenue administration. No pretence of administering justice was made. The country was left in a state of the most complete anarchy, and, beside all the disorders that naturally attend such a condition, the feuds of small princes, and the unrestrained excesses of lawless classes, they were subjected to periodical invasions of another robber nation, the Pindarrees, who only differed from the Maharattas in being even more ruthless and unsparing; since, as they did not aim at territorial acquisition, it was not worth their while to leave a nest egg," and, accordingly, they carried off whatever they could, and destroyed and burnt up what was not portable.

These hordes of robbers were overcome by the English, and confined within the limits of their early possessions in Central India. Here for many years they chafed in impatient restriction, losing no opportunity for a quarrel which promised to unite them all in an effort to shake off the paramount influence of the English. They felt and still feel that they could easily extend their depredations if that power was withdrawn; and they know no other road to wealth and glory but such successful depredations. Their ancestors rose by them, their states were formed by them, and their armies were maintained by them. They look back upon them for all that seems honourable in the history of their families. Their bards sing of them in all their marriage and funeral processions; and, as their imaginations kindle at the recollection, they detest the arm that is extended to defend the wealth and industry of surrounding territories from their grasp. As the industrious classes acquire and display their wealth in the territories around, during a long peace, and under the protection of a strong and settled government, these native chiefs, with their little disorderly armies, feel precisely as an English country gentleman would feel with a pack of fox hounds in a country

swarming with foxes, if he were denied the privilege of hunting them.

In 1835, Colonel Sleeman paid a visit to Gwalior. He found the road a mere footpath, unimproved and unadorned; and, except the path, and a small police station, there was absolutely no sign to indicate the dominion or even the presence of man. And yet it was the highroad between two capitals, scarcely a hundred miles apart, one occupied by one of the most ancient, and the other by one of the most powerful native sovereigns of India. The cultivation was every where wretched. Scarcely a tree was to be seen, as all were swept away to be made into gun-carriages-a proceeding which showed a most philosophical disregard of the comforts of the living, the repose of the dead (who planted them with a view to a comfortable berth in the next world), and the will of the gods to whom they were dedicated. There was nothing left upon the land of animal or vegetable life to animate or enrich it. The cultivation was of the sort that looks to one crop for its entire return. There were no manufactures, no trade or commerce, save the transport of the rude produce of the land upon the backs of bullocks, for want of even a cart-road. No. one lived in the villages but those whose labour was absolutely necessary to the rudest tillage.

The colonel met twelve men wounded and bleeding. They told him that they had just been robbed outside the town near which they were. They had at once applied to the native governor. His answer was characteristic. "Look after your own affairs," said he. "Am I here to take care of merchants and travellers, or to collect the revenues of the Prince ?" Upon this the colonel remarks, "Neither he, nor the prince himself, nor any other public officer, ever dreamed that it was their duty to protect the life, property, or character of travellers, or indeed of any other human beings, save the members of their own families. In this pithy answer was described the nature and character of the government. All the revenues of Sindia's immense dominions are spent entirely in the maintenance of the court and camp of the prince; and every officer considers his duties to be limited to the collection of the rev

enue.

Protected from all external enemies by our forces, which surround him on every side, his whole army is left to him for purposes of parade and display; and having, according to his notions, no use for them elsewhere, he concentrates them around his capital, where he lives among them in the perpetual dread of mutiny and assassination. He has nowhere any police, or any establishment for the protection of the life and property of his subjects. As a citizen of the world I could not help thinking that it would be an immense blessing to a large portion of our species if an earthquake were to swallow up this court of Gwalior and the army that surrounds it. Nothing worse could possibly succeed; and something better might.

"The misrule of such states, situated in the midst of our dominions, is not without its use. There is, as Gibbon observes, a strong propensity in human nature to deprecate the advantages, and magnify the evil of present times; and if the people had not before their eyes such specimens of native rule to contrast with ours, they would think more highly than they do of their past Mahommedan and Hindoo sovereigns, and be much less disposed than they are fairly to estimate the advantages of being under our government. The native governments of the present day are fair specimens of what they have always been-grinding military despotisms; and their whole history is that of 'Saul who killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands,' as if rulers were made only to slay, and the ruled to be slain. In politics, as in landscape, "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,' and the past might be all couleur de rose in the imagination of the people, were it not reproduced in these ill-governed states, where the 'lucky accident' of a good governor is not to be expected in a century, and where the secret of the responsibility of ministers to the people has not yet been discovered."

Since this description was written the administration of government has somewhat improved under the influence of

*Another traveller, who saw the Rajah of Gwalior at a nach, describes him as sitting with a drawn sword in one hand and a naked dagger in the other.

the English Residents; but in many of its features the picture is true even to the present day. Wherever there has been improvement it has been wholly through British influence, and this vivid sketch of a native government, without that influence, enables us to realize the condition in which India would be at the present day if it had never been conquered by the English; and the state into which it would at once relapse were their supremacy withdrawn.

CHAPTER XXX.

то ELLORA.

March of Sir R. Hamilton-Indor-The Rajah's Palace-Strike into the Mail-road-Revolt of Kuhárs-Cavalcade-Origin of the present Rajah-Mhow-Goojree-Kurrumpoora-A Stray White Man-Manners of Natives-Sindwar-Fortress in Ruins -Sirpoorah-Peculiar Police Regulation-Old Venetian Coins-Enter the British Dominions-Dhoolia-Native Town-Evidences of having entered British Territory -Malligaum-Cantonments-Native Town-The Fort-Parallel Defences-Nandgaon-Camp in a Grove-Sakigaon-Put up in a Temple-Enter the Děkkun-Physical Geography-The Nizam-" Might makes Right."

WE left Oojén on the evening of February 9th, for Indor, distant thirty-eight miles. The next morning we breakfasted by the roadside, just outside a village, where were pitched the tents of Sir R. Hamilton, the Resident at Indor, who was marching from that place to Mehidpoor. During the breakfast, parties of soldiers; ladies and gentlemen on horseback, in carriages, or in shigrams; elephants, camels, and hackurees belonging to his train, were constantly coming in; and all day long we were passing people belonging to the camp, on foot, or variously mounted.

Marching is a most delightful mode of travelling. You go into tents, taking with you all your furniture and attendants, and in this way may travel any distance with all the comforts of home. The march, which is generally from twelve to eighteen miles, is made in the early morning, on horseback, or in a carriage. On arriving at the camping-ground, you find a breakfast-tent already pitched, and breakfast ready. During the discussion of the meal, the large tents and attendants come up, and a most comfortable home for the day is arranged in an inconceivably short time.

Indor is a large town strongly walled, and the residence of Holkar, one of the great Maharatta princes. The Rajah's