gave up all those hours, generally devoted to idleness, to the cultivation of letters. He was versed in philosophical theology, astronomy, and the history of his country; and in every branch of poesy, from the sacred canticles of Jayadeva to the couplets of the modern bard, he was an adept. He composed and improvised with facility, and his residence was the rendezvous for every bard of fame. That my respected tutor did not overrate his acquirements, I had the best proof in his own, for all which (and he rated them at an immeasurable distance compared with the subject of his eulogy) he held himself indebted to the heir of Marwar, who was at length slain in asserting his right to the throne in the desert. =Rām Singh and the Rāja of Narsinghgarh. The Oswāl Mahājans.=—After a four hours’ march, picking our way amidst swamps and treacherous bogs, we reached the advanced tents at Pallana. Like Deopur, it presented the spectacle of a ruin, a corner of which held all its inhabitants; the remains of temples and private edifices showed what it had once been. Both towns formerly belonged to the fisc of the Rana, who, with his usual improvidence, on the death of his nephew included them in the grant to the temple of Kanhaiya. I found at my tents the minister’s right hand, Ram Singh Mehta; Manikchand, the Diwan or factotum of the chieftain of Bhindar; and the ex-Raja of Narsinghgarh, now an exile at Udaipur.[4.25.7] The first was a fine specimen of the non-militant class of these countries, and although he had seldom passed the boundaries of Mewar, no country could produce a better specimen of a courteous gentleman: his figure tall, deportment easy, features regular and handsome, complexion fair, with a fine slightly-curled beard and mustachios jet black. Ram Singh, without being conceited, is aware that nature has been indulgent to him, and without any foppery he pays great attention to externals. He is always elegantly attired, and varies with good taste the colours of his turban and ceinture, though his loose tunics are always white; the aroma of the _itr_ is the only mark of the dandy about him: and this forms no criterion [658], as our red coats attest, which receive a sprinkling at every visit. With his dagger and pendent tassel, and the _balaband_ or purple cordon (the Rana’s gift) round his turban, behold the servant “whom the king delighteth to honour.” As he has to support himself by paying court to the Rana’s sister, the queens, and other fair influentials behind the curtain, his personal _attraits_ are no slight auxiliaries. He is of the Jain faith, and of the tribe of Osi, which now reckons one hundred thousand families, all of Rajput origin, and descendants of the Agnikula stock. They proselytized in remote antiquity, and settling at the town of Osi in Marwar, retain this designation, or the still more common one of Oswal. It was from the Pramara and Solanki branches of the Agnikula race