Part 34 (1/2)

In reply to the editor's inquiries, Colonel Biddulph, officiating Resident at Gwalior, has kindly communicated the following information on the subject of the above note, in a letter dated 30th December, 1892. 'The custom of looting some ”Banias'” shops on the installation of a new Maharaja in Gwalior is still observed. It was observed when the present Madho Rao Sindhia was installed on the _gadi_ on 3rd July, 1886, and the looting was stopped by the police on the owners of the shops calling out ”Dohai Madho Maharajki!” five shops were looted on the occasion, and compensation to the amount of Rs. 427, 4, 3 was paid to the owners. My informant tells me that the custom has apparently no connexion with religion, but is believed to refer to the days when the period between the decease of one ruler and the accession of his successor was one of disorder and plunder.

The maintenance of the custom is supposed to notify to the people that they must now look to the new ruler for protection.

'According to another informant, some ”banias” are called by the palace officers and directed to open their shops in the palace precincts, and money is given them to stock their shops. The poor people are then allowed to loot them. No shops are allowed to be looted in the bazaar.

'I cannot learn that any particular name is given to the ceremony, and there appears to be some doubt as to its meaning; but the best information seems to show that the reason a.s.signed above is the correct one.

'I cannot give any information as to the existence of the custom in other Mahratta states.'

The custom was observed late in the sixth century at the birth of King Harsha-vardhana (_Harsa-Carita_, transl, Cowell and Thomas, p.

111). Anthropologists cla.s.sify such practices as rites de pa.s.sage, marking a transition from the old to the new.

'Bania', or 'baniya', means shopkeeper, especially a grain dealer; 'gadi', or 'gaddi', is the cus.h.i.+oned seat, also known as 'masnad', which serves a Hindoo prince as a throne; and 'dohai' is the ordinary form of a cry for redress.

12. Ninety-two lakhs of rupees were then worth more than 920,000.

The _I.G._ (1908) states the normal revenue as 150 lakhs of rupees, equivalent (at the rate of exchange of 1_s._ 4_d._ to the rupee, or R 15 = 1) to one million pounds sterling. The fall in exchange has greatly lowered the sterling equivalent.

13. The Bhil tribes are included in the large group of tribes which have been driven back by the more cultivated races into the hills and jungles. They are found among the woods along the banks of the Nerbudda, Tapti, and Mahi, and in many parts of Central India and Rajputana. Of late years they have generally kept quiet; in the earlier part of the nineteenth century they gave much trouble in Khandesh. In Rajputana two irregular corps of Bhils have been organized.

14. Daughter of Mahadaji Sindhia. She died in 1834. See _post_, Chapter 70.

15. 'In 1886 the fort of Gwalior and the cantonment of Morar were surrendered by the Government of India to Sindhia in exchange for the fort and town of Jhansi. Both forts were mutually surrendered and occupied on 10th March, 1886. As the occupation of the fort of Gwalior necessitated an increase of Sindhia's army, the Maharaja was allowed to add 3,000 men to his infantry' (_Letter of Officiating Resident, dated 30th Dec._, 1892). In 1908 the Gwalior army, comprising all arms, including three regiments of Imperial Service Cavalry, numbered more than 12,000 men, described as troops of 'very fair quality' (_I.G._, 1908).

16. _Ante_, Chapter 26, note 8; Chapter 32, note 9; Chapter 49, note 2.

17. In _Ramaseeana_ the author has fully described the practices of the Thugs in taking omens, and the feelings with which they regarded their profession. Similar information concerning other criminal cla.s.ses is copiously given in the _Report on Budhuk alias Bagree Decoits_. See also Meadows Taylor, _Confessions of a Thug_, in any edition.

18. These notions are still prevalent.

19. December, 1835, Christmas Day.

20. 'Overthrower of horses'; the same epithet is applied to the Utangan river, south of the Agra district, owing to the difficulty with which it is crossed when in flood (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 423).

21. Sindhia's territories, measuring 25,041 square miles, are in parts intermixed with those of other princes, and so extend over a wide s.p.a.ce. Gwalior and its government have been discussed already in Chapter 36.

CHAPTER 50

Dholpur, Capital of the Jat Chiefs of Gohad--Consequence of Obstacles to the Prosecution of Robbers.

On the morning of the 26th,[1] we sent on one tent, with the intention of following it in the afternoon; but about three o'clock a thunder-storm came on so heavily that I was afraid that which we occupied would come down upon us; and, putting my wife and child in a palankeen, I took them to the dwelling of an old Bairagi, about two hundred yards from us. He received us very kindly, and paid us many compliments about the honour we had conferred upon him. He was a kind and, I think, a good old man, and had six disciples who seemed to reverence him very much. A large stone image of Hanuman, the monkey- G.o.d, painted red, and a good store of buffaloes, very comfortably sheltered from the pitiless storm, were in an inner court. The peac.o.c.ks in dozens sought shelter under the walls and in the tree that stood in the courtyard; and I believe that they would have come into the old man's apartment had they not seen our white faces there.

I had a great deal of talk with him, but did not take any notes of it. These old Bairagis, who spend the early and middle parts of life as disciples in pilgrimages to the celebrated temples of their G.o.d Vishnu in all parts of India, and the latter part of it as high priests or apostles in listening to the reports of the numerous disciples employed in similar wanderings are, perhaps, the most intelligent men in the country. They are from all the castes and cla.s.ses of society. The lowest Hindoo may become a Bairagi, and the very highest are often tempted to become so; the service of the G.o.d to which they devote themselves levelling all distinctions. Few of them can write or read, but they are shrewd observers of men and things, and often exceedingly agreeable and instructive companions to those who understand them, and can make them enter into unreserved conversation. Our tent stood out the storm pretty well, but we were obliged to defer our march till the next day. On the afternoon of the 27th we went on twelve miles, over a plain of deep alluvion, through which two rivers have cut their way to the Chambal; and, as usual, the ravines along their banks are deep, long, and dreary.

About half-way we were overtaken by one of the heaviest showers of rain I ever saw; it threatened us from neither side, but began to descend from an apparently small bed of clouds directly over our heads, which seemed to spread out on every side as the rain fell, and fill the whole vault of heaven with one dark and dense ma.s.s. The wind changed frequently; and in less than half an hour the whole surface of the country over which we were travelling was under water. This dense ma.s.s of clouds pa.s.sed off in about two hours to the east; but twice, when the sun opened and beamed divinely upon us in a cloudless sky to the west, the wind changed suddenly round, and rushed back angrily from the east, to fill up the s.p.a.ce which had been quickly rarefied by the genial heat of its rays, till we were again enveloped in darkness, and began to despair of reaching any human habitation before night. Some hail fell among the rain, but not large enough to hurt any one. The thunder was loud and often startling to the strongest nerves, and the lightning vivid, and almost incessant. We managed to keep the road because it was merely a beaten pathway below the common level of the country, and we could trace it by the greater depth of the water, and the absence of all shrubs and gra.s.s. All roads in India soon become watercourses--they are nowhere metalled; and, being left for four or five months every year without rain, their soil is reduced to powder by friction, and carried off by the winds over the surrounding country.[2] I was on horseback, but my wife and child were secure in a good palankeen that sheltered them from the rain. The bearers were obliged to move with great caution and slowly, and I sent on every person I could spare that they might keep moving, for the cold blast blowing over their thin and wet clothes seemed intolerable to those who were idle. My child's playmate, Gulab, a lad of about ten years of age, resolutely kept by the side of the palankeen, trotting through the water with his teeth chattering as if he had been in an ague. The rain at last ceased, and the sky in the west cleared up beautifully about half an hour before sunset. Little Gulab threw off his stuffed and quilted vest, and got a good dry English blanket to wrap round him from the palankeen. We soon after reached a small village, in which I treated all who had remained with us to as much coa.r.s.e sugar (_gur_) as they could eat; and, as people of all castes can eat of sweetmeats from the hands of confectioners without prejudice to their caste, and this sugar is considered to be the best of all good things for guarding against colds in man or beast, they all ate very heartily, and went on in high spirits. As the sun sank below us on the left, a bright moon shone out upon us from the right, and about an hour after dark we reached our tents on the north bank of the Kuari river, where we found an excellent dinner for ourselves, and good fires, and good shelter for our servants. Little rain had fallen near the tents, and the river Kuari, over which we had to cross, had not, fortunately, much swelled; nor did much fall on the ground we had left; and, as the tents there had been struck and laden before it came on, they came up the next morning early, and went on to our next ground.

On the 28th, we went on to Dholpur, the capital of the Jat chiefs of Gohad,[3] on the left bank of the Chambal, over a plain with a variety of crops, but not one that requires two seasons to reach maturity. The soil excellent in quality and deep, but not a tree anywhere to be seen, nor any such thing as a work of ornament or general utility of any kind. We saw the fort of Dholpur at a distance of six miles, rising apparently from the surface of the level plain, but in reality situated on the summit of the opposite and high bank of a large river, its foundation at least one hundred feet above the level of the water. The immense pandemonia of ravines that separated us from this fort were not visible till we began to descend into them some two or three miles from the bed of the river. Like all the ravines that border the rivers in these parts, they are naked, gloomy, and ghastly, and the knowledge that no solitary traveller is ever safe in them does not tend to improve the impression they make upon us. The river is a beautiful clear stream, here flowing over a bed of fine sand with a motion so gentle, that one can hardly conceive it is she who has played such fantastic tricks along the borders, and made such 'frightful gashes' in them. As we pa.s.sed over this n.o.ble reach of the river Chambal in a ferry-boat, the boatman told us of the magnificent bridge formed here by the Baiza Bai for Lord William Bentinck in 1832, from boats brought down from Agra for the purpose. 'Little', said they, 'did it avail her with the Governor-General in her hour of need.[4]

The town of Dholpur lies some short way in from the north bank of the Chambal, at the extremity of a range of sandstone hills which runs diagonally across that of Gwalior. This range was once capped with basalt, and some boulders are still found upon it in a state of rapid decomposition. It was quite refres.h.i.+ng to see the beautiful mango groves on the Dholpur side of the river, after pa.s.sing through a large tract of country in which no tree of any kind was to be seen.

On returning from a long ride over the range of sandstone hills the morning after we reached Dholpur, I pa.s.sed through an encampment of camels taking rude iron from some mines in the hills to the south towards Agra. They waited here within the frontier of a native state for a pa.s.s from the Agra custom house,[5] lest any one should, after they enter our frontier, pretend that they were going to smuggle it, and thus get them into trouble. 'Are you not', said I, 'afraid to remain here so near the ravines of the Chambal, when thieves are said to be so numerous?' 'Not at all,' replied they. 'I suppose thieves do not think it worth while to steal rude iron?' 'Thieves, sir, think it worth while to steal anything they can get, but we do not fear them much here.' 'Where, then, do you fear them much?' 'We fear them when we get into the Company's territories.' 'And how is this, when we have good police establishments, and the Dholpur people none?' 'When the Dholpur people get hold of a thief, they make him disgorge all that he has got of our property for us, and they confiscate all the rest that he has for themselves, and cut off his nose or his hands, and turn him adrift to deter others. You, on the contrary, when you get hold of a thief, worry us to death in the prosecution of your courts; and, when we have proved the robbery to your satisfaction, you leave all this ill-gotten wealth to his family,[6] and provide him with good food and clothing for himself, while he works for you a couple of years on the roads.[7] The consequence is, that here fellows are afraid to rob a traveller, if they find him at all on his guard, as we generally are, while in your districts they rob us where and when they like.'