The countries under the Maratha Government improved much in appearance, and in happiness, I believe, after the mayors of the palace, who were Brahmans, assumed the Government, and put aside the Satara Rajas, the descendants of the great Sivaji.[19] Wherever they could, they conferred the Government of their distant territories upon Brahmans, who filled all the high offices under them with men of the same caste, who spent the greater part of their incomes in tombs, temples, groves, and tanks, that embellished and enriched the face of the country, and thereby diffused a taste for such works generally among the people they governed.  The appearance of those parts of the Maratha dominion so governed is infinitely superior to that of the countries governed by the leaders of the military class, such as Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla, whose capitals are still mere standing camps—­a collection of hovels, and whose countries are almost entirely devoid of all those works of ornament and utility that enrich and adorn those of their neighbours.[20] They destroyed all they found in those countries when they conquered them; and they have had neither the wisdom nor the taste to raise others to supply their places.  The Sikh Government is of exactly the same character; and the countries they governed have, I believe, the same wretched appearance—­they are swarms of human locusts, who prey upon all that is calculated to enrich and embellish the face of the land they infest, and all that can tend to improve men in their social relations, and to link their affection to their soil and their government.[21] A Hindoo prince is always running to the extreme; he can never take and keep a middle course.  He is either ambitious, and therefore appropriates all his revenues to the maintenance of soldiers, to pour out in inroads upon his neighbours; or he is superstitions, and devotes all his revenue to his priesthood, who embellish his country at the same time that they weaken it, and invite invasion, as their prince becomes less and less able to repel it.

The more popular belief regarding this range of sandstone hills at Govardhan is that Lachhman, the brother of Rama, having been wounded by Ravan, the demon king of Ceylon, his surgeon declared that his wound could be cured only by a decoction of the leaves of a certain tree, to be found in a certain hill in the Himalaya mountains.  Hanuman volunteered to go for it, but on reaching the place he found that he had entirely forgotten the description of the tree required; and, to prevent mistake, he took up the whole mountain upon his back, and walked off with it to the plains.  As he passed Govardhan, where Bharat and Charat, the third and fourth brothers of Rama, then reigned, he was seen by them.[22] It was night; and, thinking him a strange sort of fish, Bharat let fly one of his arrows at him.  It hit him in the leg, and the sudden jerk caused this small fragment of his huge burden to fall off.  He called out in his agony,