Rambles and Recollections of an Indian OfficialSleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
History
Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official
Sleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
India -- Description and travel
The Nawâb of Râmpur, being applied to, states that he received the
skin from C, at the time and place mentioned, and that he still
smokes his hookah upon it; and that it had lost the two claws upon
the left forefoot. The minister of the King of Oudh states that he
received the two claws nicely set in gold; that they had cured his
boy, who still wore them round his neck to guard him from the evil
eye. The goldsmith states that he set the two claws in gold for C,
who paid him handsomely for his work. The peasantry, whose cattle
graze on the island, declare that certain gentlemen did kill a tiger
there about the time mentioned, and that they saw the body after the
skin had been taken off, and the vultures had begun to descend upon
it.
To prove that what A and B had stated could not possibly be true, the
other party appeal to some of their townsmen, who are said to be well
acquainted with their characters. They state that they really know
nothing about the matter in dispute; that their friends, who are
opposed to A and B, are much liked by their townspeople and
neighbours, as they have plenty of money, which they spend freely,
but that they are certainly very much addicted to field-sports, and
generally absent in pursuit of wild beasts for three or four months
every year; but whether they were or were not present at the killing
of the great Garhmuktesar tiger, they could not say.
Most persons would, after examining this evidence, be tolerably well
satisfied that the said tiger had really been killed at the time and
place, and by the persons mentioned by A and B; but, to establish the
fact judicially, it would be necessary to bring A, B, C, D, E, and F,
the Nawâb of Râmpur, the minister of the King of Oudh, and the
goldsmith to the criminal court at Meerut, to be confronted with the
person whose interest it was that A and B should not be believed.
They would all, perhaps, come to the said court from the different
quarters of the world in which they had thought themselves snugly
settled; but the thing would annoy them so much, and be so much
talked of, that sporting gentlemen, nawâbs, ministers, and goldsmiths
would in future take good care to have 'forgotten' everything
connected with the matter in dispute, should another similar
reference be made to them, and so A and B would never again have any
chance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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