of the living, the repose of the dead who planted them with a view to a comfortable berth in the next world, and to the will of the gods to whom they are dedicated.  There is nothing left upon the land of animal or vegetable life to enrich it; nothing of stock but what is necessary to draw from the soil an annual crop, and which looks to one harvest for its entire return.  The sovereign proprietor of the soil lets it out by the year, in farms or villages, to men who depend entirely upon the year’s return for the means of payment.  He, in his turn, lets the lands in detail to those who till them, and who depend for their subsistence, and for the means of paying their rents, upon the returns of the single harvest.  There is no manufacture anywhere to be seen, save of brass pots and rude cooking utensils; no trade or commerce, save in the transport of the rude produce of the land to the great camp at Gwalior, upon the backs of bullocks, for want of roads fit for wheeled carriages.  No one resides in the villages, save those whose labour is indispensably necessary to the rudest tillage, and those who collect the dues of government, and are paid upon the lowest possible scale.  Such is the state of the Gwalior territories in every part of India where I have seen them.[21] The miseries and misrule of the Oudh, Hyderabad, and other Muhammadan governments, are heard of everywhere, because there are, under these governments, a middle and higher class upon the land to suffer and proclaim them; but those of the Gwalior state are never heard of, because no such classes are ever allowed to grow up upon the land.  Had Russia governed Poland, and Turkey Greece, in the way that Gwalior has governed her conquered territories, we should never have heard of the wrongs of the one or the other.

In my morning’s ride the day before I left Gwalior, I saw a fine leopard standing by the side of the most frequented road, and staring at every one who passed.  It was held by two men, who sat by and talked to it as if it had been a human being.  I thought it was an animal for show, and I was about to give them something, when they told me that they were servants of the Maharaja, and were training the leopard to bear the sight and society of man.  ‘It had’, they said, ’been caught about three months ago in the jungles, where it could never bear the sight and society of man, or of any animal that it could not prey upon; and must be kept upon the most frequented road till quite tamed.  Leopards taken when very young would’, they said, ’do very well as pets, but never answered for hunting; a good leopard for hunting must, before taken, be allowed to be a season or two providing for himself, and living upon the deer he takes in the jungles and plains.’

Notes: 

1.  For the characteristics of the Marathas and Pindharis, see ante, Chapter 21, note 2.

2. Ante, Chapter 26, note 8, and Chapter 32, note 9.

3. Ante, Chapter 17, note 6.