Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c42.s1.t4.74

v3.c42.s1.t4.74

deemed worthy of his skill. He had slain upwards of one hundred lions with his own hand, besides many tigers, and boars innumerable had been victims to his lance. In this noble pastime, not exempt from danger, and pleasurable in proportion to the toil, he had a limb broken, which crippled him for life, and shortened his stature, previously below the common standard. But when he mounted his steed and waved his lance over his head, there was a masculine vigour and dignity which at once evinced that Bishan Singh, had we called upon him, would have wielded his weapon as worthily in our cause as did his glorious ancestors for Jahangir or Shah Alam. He was somewhat despotic in his own little empire, knowing that fear is a necessary incentive to respect in the governed, more especially amongst the civil servants of his government; and, if the Court Journal of Bundi may be credited, his audiences with his chancellor of the exchequer, who was his premier, must have been amusing to those in the antechamber. The Raja had a reserved fund, to which the minister was required to add a hundred rupees daily; and whatever plea he might advance for the neglect of other duties, on this point none would be listened to, or the appeal to Indrajit was threatened. “The conqueror of Indra” was no superior divinity, but a shoe of superhuman size suspended from a peg, where a more classic prince would have exhibited his rod of empire. But he reserved this for his barons, and the shoe, thus misnamed, was the humiliating corrective for an offending minister.