their own flesh whenever provocation called it from the girdle. Pema beset the Rana in all his rides, demanding a reduction [704] or rather abolition of duties for his _tanda_; and at length he took up a position on the terrace fronting the ‘balcony of the sun,’ threatening a _chandni_,[4.26.51] for such is the term applied to this suicidal revenge. The Rana, who had not the nerve of his ancestor, sent to me to beseech my interference: with his messenger, one from me returned to invite the Bhats to a settlement. They came, as fine, robust, intrepid a set as I ever saw. We soon came to issue: I urged that duties must be paid by all who chose to frequent the passes of Mewar, and that they would get nothing by their present silly mode of endeavouring to obtain remission; that if they would give a written agreement to abide by the scale of duties laid down, they should receive exemption for five hundred out of the forty thousand bullocks of their _tanda_, and be reinducted into Bamani; if not, there were daggers (showing them some on the table), and they might begin as soon as they pleased. I added that, in addition to Rana Amra’s penalty of banishment, I would recommend confiscation of their entire caravan. Pema was no fool: he accepted Bamani, and the _muafi_ for five hundred, and that day received his gold bracelets and clothes of investiture for Bamani from the Rana. =Jhālamand.=—_November 2._—Jhalamand, ten miles. Although within one march of Jodhpur, we were obliged to make an intermediate halt, in order to arrange the ceremonials of reception; a grave matter with all the magnates of the East, who regulate all such affairs by slavish precedent and ancestral wisdom. On such a novel occasion as the reception of an English envoy at this desert court, they were a good deal puzzled how to act. They could very well comprehend how an ambassador direct from majesty should be received, and were not unfamiliar with the formula to be observed towards a viceregal legation. But the present case was an anomaly: the Governor of all India, of course, could appear only as the first servant of a commercial body, which, with whatever privileges invested, never could be made to rank with royalty or its immediate emanation. Accordingly, this always proved a clog to our diplomatic missions, until the diffusion of our power from the Indus to the ocean set speculation at rest on the formalities of reception of the Company’s ambassadors. On the other hand, the eternal rotation of military adventurers enjoying ephemeral power, such as the commanders of the myrmidons of Sindhia and Holkar, compelled all the Rajput princes to forgo much of their dignity; and men like Amir Khan, Jean Baptiste, or Bapu Sindhia, who but a [705] short time ago would have deemed themselves honoured with a seat in the ante-chamber, claimed equality of reception with princes. Each made it a subject for boasting, how far he