[Nīmāj, about 60 miles E.S.E. of Jodhpur city, fief of a noble of the Udāwat Rāthors.] Footnote 4.26.55: See Vol. I. p. 539 for the murder of the princess of Udaipur, one of its results. Footnote 4.26.56: The mercenary Rohilla battalions, who are like the Walloons and independent companies which formed the first regular armies of Europe. [‘Alīgol, ‘noble troop’ (Yule, _Hobson-Jobson_, 2nd ed. 15).] Footnote 4.26.57: Which they afterwards nobly defended during many months. Footnote 4.26.58: The last, a brave and excellent man, was the writer of this letter. He, who had sacrificed all to save his prince, and, as he told me himself, supported him, when proscribed by his predecessor, by the sale of all his property, even to his wife’s jewels, yet became an exile, to save his life from an overwhelming proscription. To the anomalous state of our alliances with these States is to be ascribed many of these mischiefs. ----- [Illustration: TOWN AND FORT OF JODHPUR. (From the south-east.) _To face page 820._ ] CHAPTER 27 =City and Fort of Jodhpur.=—The sand, since we crossed the Luni, had become gradually heavier, and was quite fatiguing as we approached the capital of “the region of death”; but the Marwaris and the camels appeared to move through it as briskly as our men would on the plains of the Ganges. The view before the reader will give a more correct idea of the ‘city of Jodha’ than the most laboured description. The fort is erected on a mole projecting from a low range of hills, so as to be almost isolated, while, being higher than the surrounding objects, it is not commanded. This table-ridge (mountain we can scarcely term it, since its most elevated portion is not more than three hundred feet in height) is a curious feature in these regions of uninterrupted aridity. It is about twenty-five miles in length, and, as far as I could determine from a bird’s-eye view and from report, between two and three in breadth, the capital being placed on the highest part at the southern extremity, and may be said to be detached from it. The northern point, which is the highest, and on which the palace is built, is less than three hundred feet. Everywhere it is scarped, but especially at this point, against which the batteries of the League[4.27.1] were directed in 1806, at least a hundred and twenty feet of perpendicular height. Strong walls and numerous round and square towers encircle the crest of the hill, encompassing a space of great extent, as may be judged from the dimensions of the base, said to be four miles in circuit. Seven barriers are thrown across the circuitous ascent, each having immense portals and their separate guards. There are two small lakes under the walls: the Rani Talab, or ‘Queen’s Lake,’ to the east; and the Gulab Sagar, or ‘Rose-water Sea,’ to the south, from [710] which the garrison draws up water in buckets.