the contract by nearly a sixth of the amount, though from his talents and promises, a perfect establishment of this important department, which had been taken from others on his account, was expected. It was difficult to judge charitably of his assertions, without giving occasion to his enemies to put a wrong construction on the motives. He pitched his tent near me, and requested an interview. He looked very disconsolate, and remarked, that he had seven several times left his tent, and as often turned back, the bird of omen having each time passed him on the adverse side; but that at length he had determined to disregard it, as having forfeited confidence, he was indifferent to the future. He admitted the profligacy of his inferiors, whom he had not sufficiently superintended, and took his leave, promising by assiduity to redeem his engagements, though his past character for intrigue made his asseverations doubtful. Again failing to make good his promises, or, as was surmised, having applied the funds to his own estate, he took _saran_ with the Raja of Shahpura; where, mortified in all probability by the reflection of the exultation of his rivals over his disgrace, and having lost the confidence of his own chief when he obtained that of the Rana, he had recourse to the usual expedient of these countries when “perplexed in the extreme,”—took poison and died. =The Rāja of Narsinghgarh.=—The last of the trio of visitors on this occasion, the Raja of Narsinghgarh, is now, as before stated, in exile. He is of the tribe of Umat, one of thirty-six divisions [660] of the Pramaras,[4.25.9] settled during fifteen generations in Central India, and giving the name of Umatwara to the petty sovereignty of which Narsinghgarh is the capital. Placed in the very heart of the predatory hordes, the Pindaris and Mahrattas occupied almost every village that owned their sway, and compelled him to the degradation of living under Holkar’s orange standard, which waved over the battlements of his abode. To one or other of the great Mahratta leaders, Sindhia and Holkar, all the petty princes were made tributary dependents, and Umatwara had early acknowledged Holkar, paying the annual sum of eighty thousand rupees: but this vassalage did not secure the Raja from the ravages of the other spoliators, nor from the rapacity of the myrmidons of his immediate lord paramount. In 1817, when these countries, for the first time in many centuries, tasted the blessings of peace, Umatwara was, like Mewar, a mass of ruins, its fertile lands being overgrown with the thorny _mimosa_ or the useful _kesula_. The Raja partook of the demoralization around him; he sought refuge in opium and arak from his miseries, and was totally unfitted to aid in the work of redemption when happier days shone upon them. His son Chain Singh contrived to escape these snares, and was found in every respect competent to cooperate in the work of renovation, and through the intervention of the British agent (Major