of their burdens as they lodged at Tehri on their way, and sent after them a party of soldiers, with orders to put them in the bed of a rivulet that separated the territory of Orchha from that of the Jhansi Raja.  One of the treasure party discovered their object; and, on reaching the bank of the rivulet in a deep grass jungle, he threw down his bundle, dashed unperceived through the grass, and reached a party of travellers whom he saw ascending a hill about half a mile in advance.  The myrmidons of the minister, when they found that one had escaped, were afraid to murder the others, but took their treasure.  In spite of great obstacles, and with much danger to the families of three of those men, who resided in the capital of Tehri, the magistrate of Sagar brought the crime home to the minister, and the Raja, anxious to avail himself of the occasion to fill his coffers, got him assassinated.  The Raja was then about eighty years of age, and his minister was a strong, athletic, and brave man.  One morning while he was sitting with him in private conversation, the former pretended a wish to drink some of the water in which his household god had been washed (the ’chandan mirt’),[5] and begged the minister to go and fetch it from the place where it stood by the side of the idol in the court of the palace.  As a man cannot take his sword before the idol, the minister put it down, as the Raja knew he would, and going to the idol, prostrated himself before it preparatory to taking away the water.  In that state he was cut down by Bihari,[6] another feudal Rajput baron, who aspired to the seals, and some of his friends, who had been placed there on purpose by the Raja.  He obtained the seals by his service, and, as he was allowed to place one brother in command of the forces, and to make another chamberlain, he hoped to retain them longer than any of his predecessors had done.  Gambhir Singh’s brother, Jhujhar Singh, and the husband of his sister, hearing of his murder, made off, but were soon pursued and put to death.  The widows were all three put into prison, and all the property and estates were confiscated.  The movable property amounted to three lakhs of rupees.[7] The Raja boasted to the Governor-General’s representative in Bundelkhand of this act of retributive justice, and pretended that it was executed merely as a punishment for the robbery; but it was with infinite difficulty the merchants could recover from him any share of the plundered property out of that confiscated.  The Raja alleged that, according to our rules, the chief within whose boundary the robbery might have been committed, was obliged to make good the property.  On inspection, it was found that the robbery was perpetrated upon the very boundary line, and ‘in spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite’, the Jhansi Raja was made to pay one-half of the plundered treasure.

The old Raja, Bikramajit, died in June, 1834; and, though his death had been some time expected, he no sooner breathed his last than charges of ‘dinai’, slow poison, were got up, as usual, in the zenana (seraglio).