Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.566.1

v3.c43.t1.566.1

Begūn, February 26.—The chances were nine hundred and ninety-nine to one that I ever touched a pen again. Two days ago I started, with all the ‘pomp and circumstance’ befitting the occasion, to restore to the chief the land of his sires, of which force and fraud had conspired to deprive them during more than thirty years. The purport of my visit being made known, the ‘sons of Kalamegh’ assembled from all quarters; but honhar has again interfered. The old castle of Begun has a remarkably wide moat, across which there is a wooden bridge communicating with the town. The avant-courtiers of my cavalcade, with an elephant bearing the union, having crossed and passed under the arched gateway, I followed, contrary to the Mahaut’s advice, who said there certainly would not be space to admit the elephant and howda. But I heedlessly told him to drive on, and if he could not pass through, to dismount. The hollow sound of the bridge, and the deep moat on either side, alarmed the animal, and she darted forward with the celerity occasioned by fear, in spite of any effort to stop her. As I approached the gateway, I measured it with my eye, and expecting inevitable and instantaneous destruction, I planted my feet firmly against the howda, and my forearms against the archway, and, by an almost preternatural effort of strength, burst out the back of the howda;