=Inefficiency of this Form of Government.=—Throughout Rajasthan the character and welfare of the States depend on that of the sovereign: he is the mainspring of the system—the active power to set and keep in motion all these discordant materials; if he relax, each part separates, and moves in a narrow sphere of its own. Yet will the impulse of one great mind put the machine in regular movement, which shall endure during two or three imbecile successors, if no fresh exterior force be applied to check it. It is a system full of defects; yet we see them so often balanced by virtues, that we are alternately biassed by these counteracting qualities; loyalty and patriotism, which combine a love of the institutions, religion, and manners of the country, are the counterpoise to systematic evil. In no country has the system ever proved efficient. It has been one of eternal excitement and irregular action; inimical to order, and the repose deemed necessary after conflict for recruiting the national strength. The absence of an external foe was but the signal for disorders within, which increased to a terrific height in the feuds of the two great rival factions of Mewar, the clans of [149] Chondawat[3.2.10] and Saktawat,[3.2.11] as the weakness of the prince augmented by the abstraction of his personal domain, and the diminution of the services of the third class of vassals (the Gol), the personal retainers of the crown; but when these feuds broke out, even with the enemy at their gates, it required a prince of great nerve and talent to regulate them. Yet is there a redeeming quality in the system, which, imperfect as it is, could render such perilous circumstances but the impulse to a rivalry of heroism. =Rivalry of the Chondāwat and Saktāwat Sub-clans.=—When Jahangir had obtained possession of the palladium of Mewar, the ancient fortress of Chitor, and driven the prince into the wilds and mountains of the west, an opportunity offered to recover some frontier lands in the plains, and the Rana with all his chiefs was assembled for the purpose. But the Saktawats asserted an equal privilege with their rivals to form the vanguard;[3.2.12] a right which their indisputable valour (perhaps superior to that of the other party) rendered not invalid. The Chondawats claimed it as an hereditary privilege, and the sword would have decided the matter but for the tact of the prince. “The harawal to the clan which first enters Untala,” was a decision which the Saktawat leader quickly heard; while the other could no longer plead his right, when such a gauntlet was thrown down for its maintenance.