=Maladministration of Rāja Mān Singh.=—Such were the schemes concocting when I visited this court, which were revealed by succeeding events. At this time the Raja appeared in a state of mental depression, involved in difficulties, cautious, fearful of a false step, and surrounded by the satellites of the miscreant Akhai Chand, who, if he could no longer incarcerate his person, endeavoured to seal up the mind of his prince from all communication with those who might stimulate him to exertion. But all his arts only served to entangle him in the web then weaving for his life. The Raja first made him the means of destroying the most powerful of his chieftains, Surthan being the primary sacrifice to his sanguinary proscription; many others followed, until the best of the feudal chieftains sought refuge from his fury in exile, and found the saran (sanctuary) they sought in the surrounding States, the majority in Mewar. The day of vengeance at length arrived, and the minister and his partisans were transferred from their position at the helm of the State to a dungeon. Deceived with hopes of life, and compelled by the application of some summary methods of torture, Akhai Chand gave in a schedule of forty lakhs of property, of which the Raja realized a large portion, and then dismissed him to the other world. Nagoji, the kiladar,[4.27.12] and Mulji Dandal, both favourites and advisers of the Raja’s [720] late son, returned on the strength of a general amnesty, and forgot they had been traitors. The wealth which prodigality had heaped upon them, consisting of many of the crown jewels, being recovered, their worldly accounts were settled by a cup of poison, and their bodies thrown over the battlements. Success, and the taste of blood, whetted rather than appeased the appetite of Raja Man. He was well seconded by the new minister, Fateh Raj, the deadly opponent of Akhai Chand, and all the clan of Champawats, whom he deemed the authors of the murder of his brother Induraj, slain at the same time with Deonath. Each day announced a numerous list of victims, either devoted to death, or imprisoned and stripped of their wealth. The enormous sum of a crore of rupees has been stated as the amount of the confiscations.