Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s7.t1.32

v2.c27.s7.t1.32

Halted the 17th, to collect the dislocated baggage; for although such scenes, seasoned with romance, might do very well for us, our followers were ignorant of the name of Ann Radcliffe or other conjurers; and though admirers of tradition, like myself, preferred it after dinner. Usarwas is a valuable village, but now thinly inhabited. It was recently given by the Rana, with his accustomed want of reflection, to a Charan bard, literally for an old song. But even this folly was surpassed on his bestowing the township of Sesoda,¹ in the valley in advance, the place from which his tribe takes its appellation, on another of the fraternity, named Kishna, his master bard, who has the art to make his royal patron believe that opportunity alone is wanting to render his name as famed as that of the illustrious Sanga, or the immortal Partap. I received and returned the visit of an ascetic Sannyasi, whose hermitage was perched upon a cliff not far from our tents. Like most of his brethren, he was intelligent, and had a considerable store of local and foreign legends at command. He was dressed in a loose orange-coloured anga or tunic, with a turban of the same material, in which was twisted a necklace of the lotus-kernel;² he had another in his hand, with which he repeated the name of the deity at intervals. He expressed his own surprise and the sentiments of the inhabitants at the tranquillity they enjoyed, without any tumultuary cause being discoverable; and said that we must be something more than human. This superstitious feeling for a while was felt as well by the prince and the turbulent chief, as by the anchorite of Usarwas.