From Sea to Sea; Letters of TravelKipling, Rudyard
General
From Sea to Sea; Letters of Travel
Kipling, Rudyard
Asia -- Description and travel; Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936 -- Travel; United States -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
There is a certain amount of personal violence in and about the State,
or else where would be the good of the weapons? There are occasionally
dacoities more or less important; but these are not often heard of, and,
indeed, there is no special reason why they should be dragged into the
light of an unholy publicity, for the land governs itself in its own
way, and is always in its own way, which is by no means ours, very
happy. The Thakurs live, each in his own castle on some rock-faced hill,
much as they lived in the days of Tod; though their chances of
distinguishing themselves, except in the school, and dispensary line,
are strictly limited. Nominally, they pay _chutoond_, or a sixth of
their revenues to the State, and are under feudal obligations to supply
their Head with so many horsemen per thousand rupees; but whether the
_chutoond_ justifies its name and what is the exact extent of the "tail"
leviable, they, and perhaps the Rajputana Agency, alone know. They are
quiet, give no trouble except to the wild boar, and personally are
magnificent men to look at. The Rajput shows his breeding in his hands
and feet, which are almost disproportionately small, and as well shaped
as those of a woman. His stirrups and sword-handles are even more
unusable by Westerns than those elsewhere in India, whereas the Bhil's
knife-handle gives as large a grip as an English one. Now the little
Bhil is an aborigine, which is humiliating to think of. His tongue,
which may frequently be heard in the City, seems to possess some variant
of the Zulu click, which gives it a weird and unearthly character. From
the main gate of the City the Englishman climbed uphill towards the
Palace and the Jugdesh Temple built by one Juggat Singh at the
beginning of the last century. This building must be--but ignorance is a
bad guide--Jain in character. From basement to the stone socket of the
temple flagstaff, it is carved in high relief with elephants, men, gods,
and monsters in friezes of wearying profusion.
The management of the temple have daubed a large portion of the building
with whitewash, for which their revenues should be "cut" for a year or
two. The main shrine holds a large brazen image of Garuda, and, in the
corners of the courtyard of the main pile, are shrines to Mahadeo, and
the jovial, pot-bellied Ganesh. There is no repose in this architecture,
and the entire effect is one of repulsion; for the clustered figures of
man and brute seem always on the point of bursting into unclean,
wriggling life. But it may be that the builders of this form of house
desired to put the fear of all their many gods into the hearts of the
worshippers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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