A History of the Mahrattas v2.c55.83

v2.c55.83

² [In a letter to his friend Strachey, Mountstuart Elphinstone described Gangādhar Shāstri (Gungadhur Shastree) as ‘a person of great shrewdness and talent, who keeps the whole state of Baroda in the highest order, and here lavishes his money and marshals his suwary (i.e. savāri or retinue) in such style as to draw the attention of the whole place. Though a very learned Shastree, he affects to be quite an Englishman, walks fast, talks fast, interrupts and contradicts, and calls the Peshwa and his ministers “old fools” and “damned rascals,” or rather “dam rascal.” He mixes English words with everything he says, and will say of someone (Holkar for instance) : “Bhot tricks walla tha, laikun burra akul mund, Kukhye (cock-eye) tha (He was a very tricky person, but very intelligent. He was cock-eyed.)”’ Holkar had lost an eye. (See Colebrooke, Life of M. Elphinstone (1884), i. 275.)]