magnificence to the scene. Many little boys with rod and line were
ensnaring the sweet little _singhee_, or the golden _rohoo_ or
carp--bringing back to my heart the days, when, stealing from school, I
was wont to sit on the rocks of the Dee, at Craglug, near Aberdeen,
watching the motion of a float that was not under water once in the
twenty-four hours."
The colonel's laudable habit of associating freely, whenever opportunity
occurred, with the natives, gave him considerable insight into the state
of the country, where the caprices of the native princes were not then
much interfered with, and which consequently, as he says, "was pretty much
in the situation of the Emerald Isle;" and verily if the tale told him by
the Hindoo _gosain_ or priest at Jourâhoô, of the murder of his
predecessor in the temple, and the impunity of the robbers, were correctly
related, the Bundelas have not much to learn in the arts of bloodshed and
depredation. "This village being a sort of corner to the territories of
several Rajahs, robberies, murders, and all other diversions, are of daily
occurrence; and when enquiries are made; each territory throws the blame
on its neighbour." The maxim of government most current in Bundelcund,
both with rulers and ruled, seems indeed to have been--
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That those should take who have the power,
And those should keep who can;"
for while this strange confusion of _meum_ and _tuum_ prevailed among the
peasantry, the country was ruined by the oppressive and irregular
exactions of the rajahs, both zemindars and cultivators flying from their
habitations to escape the levying of the rents, which were often demanded
more than once by different collectors. At Chundla, the colonel was lodged
in the house of an opulent zemindar, who had absconded for the reason just
given; "and one of the thanna servants told me, that, by those means,
Bundelcund was depopulated"--a statement corroborated by the numerous
ruined brick houses remaining in the towns among the miserable hovels of
the present day. The rajahs of Bundelcund are, almost without exception,
of Rajpoot lineage, and thus of a different race from their Bundela
subjects; but the condition of the country is much the same wherever it is
left under the sway of the Hindoo princes, who are exempt even from the
partial restraint which the Koran imposes on the despotism of Mahommedan
rulers. The only effectual cure for the evils reigning in Bundelcund will
be its formal incorporation with the dominions of the Company--a
consummation which, from the refractory spirit shown in the province after
our losses in Affghanistan, is probably not far distant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account