The frank and brave Rao Raja could not help deeply regretting an arrangement, which, as he emphatically said, was “clipping his wings.” The disposition is a bad one, and both justice and political expediency enjoin a revision of it, and the bringing about a compromise which would restore the integrity of the most interesting and deserving little State in India.[10.4.30] Well has it repaid the anxious care we manifested for its interests; for while every other principality has, by some means or other, caused uneasiness or trouble to the protecting power, Bundi has silently advanced to comparative prosperity, happy in her independence, and interfering with no one. The Rao Raja survived the restoration of his independence only four short years, when he was carried off by that scourge, the cholera morbus. In his extremity, writhing under a disease which unmans the strongest frame and mind, he was cool and composed. He interdicted his wives from following him to the pyre, and bequeathing his son and successor [503] to the guardianship of the representative of the British government, breathed his last in the prime of life. =Death and Character of Mahārāo Bishan Singh.=—The character of Bishan Singh may be summed up in a few words. He was an honest man, and every inch a Rajput. Under an unpolished exterior, he concealed an excellent heart and an energetic soul; he was by no means deficient in understanding, and possessed a thorough knowledge of his own interests. When the Mahrattas gradually curtailed his revenues, and circumscribed his power and comforts, he seemed to delight in showing how easily he could dispense with unessential enjoyments; and found in the pleasures of the chase the only stimulus befitting a Rajput. He would bivouac for days in the lion’s lair, nor quit the scene until he had circumvented the forest king, the only prey he deemed worthy of his skill. He had slain upwards of one hundred lions with his own hand, besides many tigers, and boars innumerable had been victims to his lance. In this noble pastime, not exempt from danger, and pleasurable in proportion to the toil, he had a limb broken, which crippled him for life, and shortened his stature, previously below the common standard. But when he mounted his steed and waved his lance over his head, there was a masculine vigour and dignity which at once evinced that Bishan Singh, had we called upon him, would have wielded his weapon as worthily in our cause as did his glorious ancestors for Jahangir or Shah Alam. He was somewhat despotic in his own little empire, knowing that fear is a necessary incentive to respect in the governed, more especially amongst the civil servants of his government; and, if the Court Journal of Bundi may be credited, his audiences with his chancellor of the exchequer, who was his premier, must have been amusing to those in the antechamber. The Raja had a reserved fund, to which the minister was required to add a