Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s9.t1.22

v1.c20.s9.t1.22

Return of the Exiles.—To recall the exiled population was a measure simultaneous with the assembling of the nobles ; but this was a work requiring time : they had formed ties, and incurred obligations to the societies which had sheltered them, which could not at once be disengaged or annulled. But wherever a subject of Mewar existed, proclamations penetrated, and satisfactory assurances were obtained, and realized to an extent which belied in the strongest manner the assertion that patriotism is unknown to the natives of Hindustan.¹ The most enthusiastic and cheering proofs were afforded that neither oppression from without, nor tyranny within, could expel the feeling for the bapota, the land of their fathers. Even now, though time has chastened the impressions, we should fear to pen but a tithe of the proofs of devotion of the husbandman of Mewar to the solum natale : it would be deemed romance by those who never contemplated humanity in its reflux from misery and despair to the ‘ sweet influences ’ of hope ; he alone who had witnessed the day of trouble, and beheld the progress of desolation—the standing corn grazed by Mahratta horse—the rifled towns devoted to the flames—the cattle driven to the camp, and the chief men seized as hostages for money never to be realized—could appreciate their deliverance. To be permitted to see these evils banished, to behold the survivors of oppression congregated from the most distant provinces, many of them strangers to each other, and the aged and the helpless awaiting the lucky day to take possession of their ruined abodes, was a sight which memory will not part with. Thus on the 3rd of Sawan (July),¹ a favourite day with the husbandman, three hundred of all conditions, with their waggons and implements of labour, and preceded by banners and music, marched into Kapasan ;² and Ganesha was once again invoked as they reconsecrated their dwellings, and placed his portrait as the Janus of the portals. On the same day, and within eight months subsequent to the signature of the treaty, above three hundred towns and villages were simultaneously reinhabited ; and the land, which for many years had been a stranger to the plough-share, was broken up. Well might [483] the superstitious fancy that miracles were abroad ; for even to those who beheld the work in progression it had a magical result, to see the waste covered with habitations, and the verdant corn growing in the fields where lately they had roused the boar from his retreat ! It was a day of pride for Britain ! By such exertions of her power in these distant lands her sway is hallowed. By Britain alone can this fair picture be defaced ; the tranquillity and independence she has conferred, by her alone may be disturbed !