Part 29 (1/2)

Notes:

1. Since the author's time conditions have much changed. Then, and for long afterwards, up to the Mutiny, every village throughout the country was fall of arms, and almost every man was armed.

Consequently, in those tracts where the Mutiny of the native army was accompanied by popular insurrection, the flame of rebellion burned fiercely, and was subdued with difficulty. The painful experience of 1857 and 1858 proved the necessity of general disarmament, and nearly the whole of British India has been disarmed under the provisions of a series of Acts. Licences to have and carry ordinary arms and ammunition are granted by the magistrates of districts. Licences to possess artillery are granted only by the Governor-General in Council. The improved organization of the police and of the executive power generally renders possible the strict enforcement of the law.

Some arms are concealed, but very few of these are serviceable. With rare exceptions, arms are now carried only for display, and knowledge of the use of weapons has died out in most cla.s.ses of the population.

The village forts have been everywhere dismantled. Robbery by armed gangs still occurs in certain districts (_see ante_, Chapter 23, note 14), but is much less frequent than it used to be in the author's days.

2. Many towns and villages bear the name of Mau (_auglice_, Mhow), which may be, as Mr. Growse suggests, a form of the Sanskrit _mahi_, 'land' or 'ground'. The town referred to in the text is the princ.i.p.al town of the Jhansi district, distinguished from its h.o.m.onyms as Mau- Ranipur, situated about east-south-east from Jhansi, at a distance of forty miles from that city. Its special export used to be the 'kharwa' cloth, dyed with 'ai' (_see ante_., Chapter 31, note 4).

3. This insurrection continued into the year 1833. 'The inhabitants were reduced to the greatest distress, and have, even to the present day, scarcely recovered the losses they then sustained' (_N.W.P.

Gazetteer_, vol. i (1870), p. 296).

4. See the author's _Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, pa.s.sim_.

5. Partabgarh is now a separate district in the Fyzabad Division of Oudh. The chief town, also called Partabgarh, is thirty-two miles north of Allahabad, and still possesses a Raja, who, at present (1914), is a most respectable gentleman, with no thoughts of violence. Further details about the Partabgarh family are given in the _Journey_, vol. i, p. 231.

6. Transcriber's note:- The author then uses the spelling 'Husain'

consistently.

7. 'The news department is under a Superintendent-General, who has sometimes contracted for it, as for the revenues of a district, but more commonly holds it in _amani_, as a manager. . . . He nominates his subordinates, and appoints them to their several offices, taking from each a present gratuity and a pledge for such monthly payments as he thinks the post will enable him to make. They receive from four to fifteen rupees a month each, and have each to pay to their President, for distribution among his patrons or patronesses at Court, from one hundred to five hundred rupees a month in ordinary times. Those to whom they are accredited have to pay them, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, certain sums monthly, to prevent their inventing or exaggerating cases of abuse of power or neglect of duty on their part; but, when they happen to be really guilty of great acts of atrocity, or great neglect of duty, they are required to pay extraordinary sums, not only to the news-writers, who are especially accredited to them, but to all others who happen to be in the neighbourhood at the time. There are six hundred and sixty news- writers of this kind employed by the king, and paid monthly three thousand one hundred and ninety-four rupees, or, on an average, between four and five rupees each; and the sums paid by them to their President for distribution among influential officers and Court favourites averages [sic] above one hundred and fifty thousand rupees a year. . . . Such are the reporters of the circ.u.mstances in all the cases on which the sovereign and his ministers have to pa.s.s orders every day in Oudh. . . . the European magistrate of one of our neighbouring districts one day, before the Oudh Frontier Police was raised, entered the Oudh territory at the head of his police in pursuit of some robbers, who had found an asylum in one of the King's villages. In the attempt to secure them some lives were lost: and, apprehensive of the consequences, he sent for the official news- writer, and _gratified_ him in the usual way. No report of the circ.u.mstances was made to the Oudh Darbar; and neither the King, the President, nor the British Government ever heard anything about it'

(_Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, vol. i, pp. 67-69). Such a System of official news-writers was usually maintained by Asiatic despots from the most ancient times.

8. full details of the rotten state of the king's army are given in the _Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_.

9. Then worth 4,000, or more.

10. Mirzapur (Mirzapore) on the Ganges, twenty-seven miles from Benares, was, in the author's time, the princ.i.p.al depot for the cotton and cloth trade of Northern India. Although the East Indian Railway pa.s.ses through the city, the construction of the railway has diverted the bulk of the trade from Mirzapur, which is now a declining place. The population, which wag 70,621 in 1881, fell to 32,332 in 1911. The carpets made there are well known.

11. Then equal to 200,000, or more.

12. The Panna State lies between the British districts of Banda, in the United Provinces, on the north, and Damoh and Jabalpur, in the Central Provinces, on the south. The chief is a descendant of Chhatarsal. For description and engraving of the diamond mines see _Economic Geology_ (1881), p. 39.

13. Then equivalent to 2,000, or more.

14. The words 'of the same clan' are inexact. The author has shown (_ante_, Chapter 23 following [10], and Chapter 26 following [32]) that Rajputs never marry into their own clan.

15. 'The Raja of Chanderi belonged to the same family as the Orchha chief. Sindhia annexed a great part of the Chanderi State in 1811.

Chanderi was for a time British territory, but is now again in Sindhia's dominions. Its vicissitudes are related in _N.W.P.

Gazetteer_ (1870), vol. i, pp. 351-8.

16. In Oudh the misgovernment, anarchy, and cruel rapine, briefly alluded to in the text, and vividly described in detail by the author in his _Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, lasted until the annexation of the kingdom by Lord Dalhousie in 1856, and, after a brief lull, were renewed during the insurrection of 1857 and 1858.

The events of those years are a curious commentary on the author's belief that the people of Oudh entertained 'a respect for our rule and a love for our service'. The service of the British Government is sought because it pays, but a foreign Government must not expect love. Respect for the British rule depends upon the strength of that rule. Oudh still sends many recruits to the native army, though the young men no longer enjoy the advantage of a training in 'bhumiawat'.