Roughly speaking, the Maharana and the Prime Minister--in whose family
the office has been hereditary for many generations--divide the power of
the State. They control, more or less, the Mahand Raj Sabha or Council
of Direction and Revision. This is composed of many of the Rawats and
Thakurs of the State, _and_ the Poet Laureate who, under a less genial
administration, would be presumably the Registrar. There are also
District Officers, Officers of Customs, Superintendents of the Mint,
Master of the Horses, and Supervisor of Doles, which last is pretty and
touching. The State officers itself, and the Englishman’s investigations
failed to unearth any Bengalis. The Commandant of the State Army, about
five thousand men of all arms, is a retired non-commissioned officer, a
Mr. Lonergan; who, as the medals on his breast attest, has “done the
State some service,” and now in his old age rejoices in the rank of
Major-General, and teaches the Maharaja’s guns to make uncommonly good
practice. The infantry are smart and well set up, while the
Cavalry--rare thing in Native States--have a distinct notion of keeping
their accoutrements clean. They are, further, well mounted on light wiry
Mewar and Kathiawar horses. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the
Pathan comes down with his pickings from the Punjab to Udaipur, and
finds a market there for animals that were much better employed in--but
the complaint is a stale one. Let us see, later on, what the Jodhpur
stables hold; and then formulate an indictment against the Government.
So much for the indigenous administration of Udaipur. The one drawback
in the present Maharaja, from the official point of view, is his want of
education. He is a thoroughly good man, but was not brought up with a
seat on the _guddee_ before his eyes, consequently he is not an
English-speaking man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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