Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c40.75

v3.c40.75

¹ That is, 1814. I am transcribing from my journals of that day, just after the return of one of my parties of discovery from these regions, bringing with them natives of Dhat, who, to use their own simple but expressive phraseology, “had the measure of the desert in the palm of their hands ”; for they had been employed as kasids, or messengers, for thirty years of their lives. Two of them afterwards returned and brought away their families, and remained upwards of five years in my service, and were faithful, able, and honest in the duties I assigned them, as jamadars of daks, or superintendents of posts, which were for many years under my charge when at Sindhia’s court, extending at one time from the Ganges to Bombay, through the most savage and little-known regions in India. But with such men as I drilled to aid in these discoveries, I found nothing insurmountable. [The famine of 1812-13 was the most calamitous of the earlier visitations (Erskine iii. A. 125).]