Part 28 (1/2)

Among the Muhammadan princes there was no law that bound the whole members of a family to obey the eldest son of a deceased prince.

Every son of the Emperor of Hindustan considered that he had a right to set up his claim to the throne, vacated by the death of his father; and, in antic.i.p.ation of that death, to strengthen his claim by negotiations and intrigues with all the territorial chiefs and influential n.o.bles of the empire. However _prejudicial to the interests_ of his elder brother such measures might be, they were never considered to be an _invasion of his rights_, because such rights had never been established by the laws of their prophet. As all the sons considered that they had an equal right to solicit the support of the chiefs and n.o.bles, so all the chiefs and n.o.bles considered that they could adopt the cause of whichever _son_ they chose, without incurring the reproach of either _treason_ or dishonour. The one who succeeded thought himself justified by the law of self-preservation to put, not only his brothers, but all their sons, to death; so that there was, after every new succession, an entire _clearance_ of all the male members of the imperial family.

Aurangzeb said to his pedantic tutor, who wished to be raised to high station on his accession to the imperial throne, 'Should not you, instead of your flattery, have taught me something of that point so important to a king, which is, what are the reciprocal duties of a sovereign to his subjects, and those of the subjects to their sovereign? And ought not you to have considered that one day I should be obliged, with the sword, to dispute my life and the crown with my brothers? Is not that the destiny, almost of all the sons of Hindustan?'[6] Now that they have become pensioners of the British Government, the members increase like white ants; and, as Malthus has it, 'press so hard against their means of subsistence' that a great many of them are absolutely starving, in spite of the enormous pension the head of the family receives for their maintenance.[7]

The city of Datiya is surrounded by a stone wall about thirty feet high, with its foundation on a solid rock; but it has no ditch or glacis, and is capable of little or no defence against cannon. In the afternoon I went, accompanied by Lieutenant Thomas, and followed by the best _cortege_ we could muster, to return the Raja's visit. He resides within the walls of the city in a large square garden, enclosed with a high wall, and filled with fine orange-trees, at this time bending under the weight of the most delicious fruit. The old chief received us at the bottom of a fine flight of steps leading up to a handsome pavilion, built upon the wall of one of the faces of this garden. It was enclosed at the back, and in front looked into the garden through open arcades. The floors were spread with handsome carpets of the Jhansi manufacture. In front of the pavilion was a wide terrace of polished stone, extending to the top of the flight of the steps; and, in the centre of this terrace, and directly opposite to us as we looked into the garden, was a fine _jet d'eau_ in a large basin of water in full play, and, with its shower of diamonds, showing off the rich green and red of the orange-trees to the best advantage.

The large quadrangle thus occupied is called the 'kila', or fort, and the wall that surrounds it is thirty feet high, with a round embattled tower at each corner. On the east face is a fine large gateway for the entrance, with a curtain as high as the wall itself.

Inside the gate is a piece of ordnance painted red, with the largest calibre I ever saw.[8] This is fired once a year, at the festival of the Dasahra.[9]

Our arrival at the wall was announced by a salute from some fine bra.s.s guns upon the bastions near the gateway. As we advanced from the gateway up through the garden to the pavilion, we were again serenaded by our friends with their guitars and excellent voices.

They were now on foot, and arranged along both sides of the walk that we had to pa.s.s through. The open garden s.p.a.ce within the walls appeared to me to be about ten acres. It is crossed and recrossed at right angles by numerous walks, having rows of plantain and other fruit trees on each side; and orange, pomegranate, and other small fruit trees to fill the s.p.a.ce between; and anything more rich and luxuriant one can hardly conceive. In the centre of the north and west sides are pavilions with apartments for the family above, behind, and on each side of the great reception room, exactly similar to that in which we were received on the south face. The whole formed, I think, the most delightful residence that I have seen for a hot climate. There is, however, no doubt that the most healthy stations in this, and every other hot climate, are those situated upon dry, open, sandy plains, with neither shrubberies nor basins.[10]

We were introduced to the young Raja, the old man's adopted son, a lad of about ten years of age, who is to be married in February next.

He is plain in person, but has a pleasing expression of countenance; and, if he be moulded after the old man, and not after his minister, the country may perhaps have in him the 'lucky accident' of a good governor.[11] I have rarely seen a finer or more prepossessing man than the Raja, and all his subjects speak well of him. We had an elephant, a horse, abundance of shawls, and other fine clothes placed before us as presents; but I prayed the old gentleman to keep them all for me till I returned, as I was a mere voyageur without the means of carrying such valuable things in safety; but he would not be satisfied till I had taken two plain hilts of swords and spears, the manufacture of Datiya, and of little value, which Lieutenant Thomas and I promised to keep for his sake. The rest of the presents were all taken back to their places. After an hour's talk with the old man and his ministers, attar of roses and pan were distributed, and we took our leave to go and visit the old palace, which as yet we had seen only from a distance. There were only two men besides the Raja, his son, and ourselves, seated upon chairs. All the other princ.i.p.al persons of the court sat around cross-legged on the carpet; but they joined freely in the conversation, I was told by these courtiers how often the young chief had, during the day, asked when he could have the happiness of seeing me; and the old chief was told, in my hearing, how many _good things_ I had said since I came into his territories, all tending to his honour and my credit. This is a species of barefaced flattery to which we are all doomed to submit in our intercourse with these native chiefs; but still, to a man of sense, it never ceases to be distressing and offensive; for he can hardly ever help feeling that they must think him a mere child before they could venture to treat him with it. This is, however, to put too harsh a construction upon what in reality, the people mean only as civility; and they, who can so easily consider the grandfathers of their chiefs as G.o.ds, and wors.h.i.+p them as such, may be suffered to treat _us_ as heroes and sayers of good things without offence.[12]

We ascended to the summit of the old palace, and were well repaid for the trouble by the view of an extremely rich sheet of wheat, gram, and other spring crops, extending to the north and east, as far as the eye could reach, from the dark belt of forest, three miles deep, with which the Raja has surrounded his capital on every side as hunting grounds. The lands comprised in this forest are, for the most part, exceedingly poor, and water for irrigation is unattainable within them, so that little is lost by this taste of the chief for the sports of the field, in which, however, he cannot himself now indulge.

On the 19th[13] we left Datiya, and, after emerging from the surrounding forest, came over a fine plain covered with rich spring crops for ten miles, till we entered among the ravines of the river Sindh, whose banks are, like those of all rivers in this part of India, bordered to a great distance by these deep and ugly inequalities. Here they are almost without gra.s.s or shrubs to clothe their hideous nakedness, and have been formed by the torrents, which, in the season of the rains, rush from the extensive plain, as from a wide ocean, down to the deep channel of the river in narrow streams.

These streams cut their way easily through the soft alluvial soil, which must once have formed the bed of a vast lake.[14] On coming through the forest, before sunrise we discovered our error of the day before, for we found excellent deer-shooting in the long gra.s.s and brushwood, which grow luxuriantly at some distance from the city. Had we come out a couple of miles the day before, we might have had n.o.ble sport, and really required the _forbearance and humanity_ to which we had so magnanimously resolved to sacrifice our 'pride of art' as sportsmen; for we saw many herds of the nilgai, antelope, and spotted deer,[15] browsing within a few paces of us, within the long gra.s.s and brushwood on both sides of the road. We could not stay, however, to indulge in much sport, having a long march before us.

Notes:

1. Some readers may be shocked at the notion of the author shooting pig, but, in Bundelkhand, where pig-sticking, or hog-hunting, as the older writers call it, is not practised, hog-shooting is quite legitimate.

2. The common antelope, or black buck (_Antilope bezoartica_, or _cervicapra_) feed in herds, sometimes numbering many hundreds, in the open plains, especially those of black soil. Men armed with matchlocks can scarcely get a shot except by adopting artifices similar to those described in the text.

3. Sixteen species of hawks, belonging to several genera, are trained in India. They are often fed by being allowed to suck the blood from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of live pigeons, and their eyes are darkened by means of a silken thread pa.s.sed through holes in the eyelids. 'Hawking is a very dull and very cruel sport. A person must become insensible to the sufferings of the most beautiful and most inoffensive of the brute creation before he can feel any enjoyment in it. The cruelty lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the hawks' (_Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, vol. i, p, 109). Asoka forbade the practice by the words: 'The living must not be fed with the living' (Pillar Edict V, _c._ 243 B.C., in V. A. Smith, _Asoka_, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 188).

4. The wording of this sentence is unfortunate, and it is not easy to understand why the author mentioned Bhopal. The princ.i.p.ality of Bhopal was formed by Dost Mohammed Khan, an Afghan officer of Aurangzeb, who became independent a few years after that sovereign's death in 1707. Since that time the dynasty has always continued to be Muhammadan. The services of Sikandar Begam in the Mutiny are well known. Malwa is the country lying between Bundelkhand, on the east, and Rajputana, on the west, and includes Bhopal. Most of the states in this region are now ruled by Hindoos, but the local dynasty which ruled the kingdom of Malwa and Mandu from A.D. 1401 to 1531 was Musalman. (See Thomas, _Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Dehli_, pp.

346-53.)

5. All near relatives succeed to a Muhammadan's estate, which is divided, under complicated rules, into the necessary number of shares. A son's share is double that of a daughter. As between themselves all sons share equally.

6. Bernier's _Revolutions of the Mogul Empire_. [W. H. S.] The author seems to have used either the London edition of 1671, ent.i.tled _The History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogul_, or one of the reprints of that edition. The anecdote referred to is called by Bernier 'an uncommonly good story'. Aurangzeb made a long speech, ending by dismissing the unlucky pedagogue with the words: 'Go! withdraw to thy native village. Henceforth let no man know either who thou art, or what is become of thee.' (Bernier, _Travels in the Mogul Empire_, pp. 154-161, ed. Constable and V. A, Smith, 1914.) Manucci repeats the story with slight variations (_Storie da Mogor_, vol. ii, pp. 29-33).

7. Compare the forcible description of the state of the Delhi royal family in Chapter 76, _post_. The old emperor's pension was one hundred thousand rupees a month. The events of the Mutiny effected a considerable clearance, though the number of persons claiming relations.h.i.+p with the royal house is still large. A few of these have taken service under the British Government, but have not distinguished themselves.

8. The author, unfortunately, does not give the dimensions of this piece. Rumi Khan's gun at Bij.a.pur, which was cast in the sixteenth century at Ahmadnagar, is generally considered the largest ancient cannon in India. It is fifteen feet long, and weighs about forty-one tons, the calibre being two feet four inches. Like the gun at Datiya, it is painted with red lead, and is wors.h.i.+pped by Hindoos, who are always ready to wors.h.i.+p every manifestation of power. Another big gun at Bij.a.pur is thirty feet in length, built up of bars bound together.

Other very large pieces exist at Gawilgarh in Berar, and Bidar in the Nizam's dominions. (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. Gun, Bij.a.pur, Gawilgarh Hill Range, and Beder.)

9. The Dasahra festival, celebrated at the beginning of October, marks the close of the rains and the commencement of the cold season.

It is observed by all cla.s.ses of Hindus, but especially by Rajas and the military cla.s.ses, for whom this festival has peculiar importance.

In the old days no prince or commander, whether his command consisted of soldiers or robbers, ever undertook regular operations until the Dasahra had been duly observed. All Rajas still receive valuable offerings on this occasion, which form an important element in their revenue. In some places buffaloes are sacrificed by the Raja in person. The soldiers wors.h.i.+p the weapons which they hope to use during the coming season. Among the Marathas the ordnance received especial attention and wors.h.i.+p. The ceremony of wors.h.i.+pping certain leguminous trees at this festival has been noticed _ante_, Chapter 26 note 8.

10. Few Europeans nowadays could join in the author's enthusiastic admiration of the Datiya garden. The arrangements seem to have been those usual in large formal native gardens in Northern India.