Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s7.t3.33

v2.c27.s7.t3.33

Interview with Rāja Mān Singh.—Having lifted the mantle which veiled the future, my reader must forget all that [721] has been said to the disadvantage of Raja Man, and see only the dignified, the courteous, and the well-instructed gentleman and prince. I cannot think that the Raja had coolly formed to himself the plan of the sanguinary measures he subsequently pursued, and which it would require a much more extended narrative to describe. We discoursed freely on past history, in which he was well read, as also in Persian, and his own native dialects. He presented me with no less than six metrical chronicles of his house; of two, each containing seven thousand stanzas, I made a rough translation. In return, I had transcribed and sent to him Ferishta’s great History of the Mahomedan Power in India, and Khulasatu-t-tawarikh,² a valuable epitome of the history of Hindustan. I little imagined that I should then have to exhibit him otherwise than his demeanour and instructive discourse made him appear to me. In our graver conversation I was amused with a discourse on the rules of government, and instructions for the guidance of ambassadors, which my better acquaintance with Chand discovered to be derived from that writer. He carried me, accompanied by a single domestic, to various apartments in the palace, whence he directed my view across the vast plains of the desert, whose monarch I envied not. The low hills in the vicinity alone broke the continuity of this arid region, in which a few isolated nim trees were thinly scattered, to remind one of the absence of all that is grand in vegetation. After a visit of several hours, I descended to my tent, and found my friends, Captain Waugh and Major Gough, just returned from a successful chase of an antelope, which, with the aid of some Rohilla greyhounds, they had run down. I attributed their success to the heavy sands, on which I have witnessed many pulled down by dogs of little speed; but the secret was revealed on this animal being sent to the cuisinier. On depriving him of his hide, between it and the flesh the whole carcase was covered with a large, inert, amorphous white maggot. The flesh was buried in the sands, and no venison appeared again on my table while in India.¹