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
draws two-thirds of the income he drew from the same lands in 1817.
There are in the valley of the Nerbudda districts that yield a great
deal more produce every year than either Orchhâ, Jhânsî, or Datiyâ;
and yet, from the want of the same domestic markets, they do not
yield one-fourth of the amount of land revenue. The lands are,
however, rated equally high to the assessment, in proportion to their
value to the farmers and cultivators. To enable them to yield a
larger revenue to Government, they require to have larger
establishments as markets for land produce. These establishments may
be either public, and paid by Government; or they may be private, as
manufactories, by which the land produce of these districts would be
consumed by people employed in investing the value of their labour in
commodities suited to the demand of distant markets, and more
valuable than land produce in proportion to their weight and bulk.[7]
These are the establishments which Government should exert itself to
introduce and foster; since the valley of the Nerbudda, in addition
to a soil exceedingly fertile, has in its whole line, from its source
to its embouchure, rich beds of coal reposing for the use of future
generations, under the sandstone of the Sâtpura and Vindhya ranges,
and beds no less rich of very fine iron. These advantages have not
yet been justly appreciated; but they will be so by and by.[8]
About half-past four in the afternoon of the day we reached Datiyâ, I
had a visit from the Râjâ, who came in his palankeen, with a very
respectable, but not very numerous or noisy, train, and he sat with
me about an hour. My large tents were both pitched parallel to each
other, about twenty paces distant, and united to each other at both
ends by separate 'kanâts', or cloth curtains. My little boy was
present, and behaved extremely well in steadily refusing, without
even a look from me, a handful of gold mohurs, which the Râjâ pressed
several times upon his acceptance. I received him at the door of my
tent, and supported him upon my arm to his chair, as he cannot walk
without some slight assistance, from the affection already mentioned
in his leg. A salute from the guns at his castle announced his
departure and return to it. After the audience, Lieutenant Thomas and
I ascended to the summit of a palace of the former Râjâs of this
state, which stands upon a high rock close inside the eastern gate of
the city, whence we could see to the west of the city a still larger
and handsomer palace standing, I asked our conductors, the Râjâ's
servants, why it was unoccupied. 'No prince these degenerate days',
said they, 'could muster a family and court worthy of such a palace--
the family and court of the largest of them would, within the walls
of such a building, feel as if they were in a desert. Such palaces
were made for princes of the older times, who were quite different
beings from those of the present day.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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