William Sleeman - Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

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RAMBLES AND RECOLLECTIONS
OF AN
INDIAN OFFICIAL

Portrait of General Sir W. H. Sleeman, K.C.B

GENERAL SIR W. H SLEEMAN. K.C.B.

RAMBLES

AND

RECOLLECTIONS

OF AN

INDIAN OFFICIAL

BY

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W. H. SLEEMAN, K.C.B.
REVISED ANNOTATED EDITION
BY

VINCENT A. SMITH
M.A. (DUBL. ET OXON.), M.R.A.S., F.R.N.S., LATE OF THE
INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE,
AUTHOR OF 'THE EARLY HISTORY OF INDIA'
'A HISTORY OF FINE ART IN INDIA AND CEYLON'. ETC.

HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW
NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
1915

Transcriber's Note

In producing this e-text the numerous notes have been moved to the end of their respective chapters and renumbered. The printed 'Additions and Corrections' have been included in the relevant text.

The map showing the author's route has been confined to the area immediately adjacent to the route, to preserve legibility while maintaining a reasonable file size.

In the printed edition the spelling of certain words is not always consistent. This is especially true of the use of diacritical marks on certain words, even within a single page. This e-text attempts to reproduce the spellings exactly as used in the printed edition.

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION

MY DEAR SISTER,

Were any one to ask your countrymen in India what has been their greatest source of pleasure while there, perhaps nine in ten would say, the letters which they receive from their sisters at home. These, of all things, perhaps, tend most to link our affections with home by filling the landscapes, so dear to our recollections, with ever varying groups of the family circles, among whom our infancy and our boyhood have been passed; and among whom we still hope to spend the winter of our days.

They have a very happy facility in making us familiar with the new additions made from time to time to the dramatis personae of these scenes after we quit them, in the character of husbands, wives, children, or friends; and, while thus contributing so much to our happiness, they no doubt tend to make us better citizens of the world, and servants of government, than we should otherwise be, for, in our 'struggles through life in India', we have all, more or less, an eye to the approbation of those circles which our kind sisters representwho may, therefore, be considered in the exalted light of a valuable species of unpaid magistracy to the Government of India.

No brother has ever had a kinder or better correspondent than I have had in you, my dear sister; and it was the consciousness of having left many of your valued letters unanswered, in the press of official duties, that made me first think of devoting a part of my leisure to you in these Rambles and Recollections, while on my way from the banks of the Nerbudda river to the Himlaya mountains, in search of health, in the end of 1835 and beginning of 1836. To what I wrote during that journey I have now added a few notes, observations, and conversations with natives, on the subjects which my narrative seemed to embrace; and the whole will, I hope, interest and amuse you and the other members of our family; and appear, perchance, not altogether uninteresting or uninstructive to those who are strangers to us both.

Of one thing I must beg you to be assured, that I have nowhere indulged in fiction, either in the narrative, the recollections, or the conversations. What I relate on the testimony of others I believe to be true; and what I relate upon my own you may rely upon as being so. Had I chosen to write a work of fiction, I might possibly have made it a good deal more interesting; but I question whether it would have been so much valued by you, or so useful to others; and these are the objects I have had in view. The work may, perhaps, tend to make the people of India better understood by those of my own countrymen whose destinies are cast among them, and inspire more kindly feelings towards them. Those parts which, to the general reader, will seem dry and tedious, may be considered, by the Indian statesman, as the most useful and important.

The opportunities of observation, which varied employment has given me, have been such as fall to the lot of few; but, although I have endeavoured to make the most of them, the time of public servants is not their own; and that of few men has been more exclusively devoted to the service of their masters than mine. It may be, however, that the world, or that part of it which ventures to read these pages, will think that it had been better had I not been left even the little leisure that has been devoted to them.

Your ever affectionate brother,

W. H. SLEEMAN.

CONTENTS

Annual Fairs held on the Banks of Sacred Streams in India

Hindoo System of Religion

Legend of the Nerbudda River

A Suttee on the Nerbudda

Marriages of TreesThe Tank and the PlantainMeteorsRainbows

Hindoo Marriages

The Purveyance System

Religious SectsSelf-government of the CastesChimneysweepersWasherwomen [1]Elephant Drivers

The Great IconoclastTroops routed by HornetsThe Rn of
GarhHornets' Nests in India

The Peasantry and the Land Settlement

Witchcraft

The Silver Tree, or 'Kalpa Briksha'The 'Singhra', or Trapa bispinosa, and the Guinea-Worm

Thugs and Poisoners

Basaltic Cappings of the Sandstone Hills of Central IndiaSuspension BridgeProspects of the Nerbudda ValleyDeification of a Mortal

Legend of the Sgar LakeParalysis from eating the Grain of the Lathyrus sativus

Suttee TombsInsalubrity of deserted Fortresses

Basaltic CappingsInterview with a Native ChiefA Singular Character

Birds' NestsSports of Boyhood

Feeding PilgrimsMarriage of a Stone with a Shrub

The Men-Tigers

Burning of Deor by a FreebooterA Suttee

Interview with the Rj who marries the Stone to the ShrubOrder of the Moon and the Fish

The Rj of OrchhMurder of his many Ministers

Corn DealersScarcitiesFamines in India

Epidemic DiseasesScape-goat

Artificial Lakes in Bundlkhand-Hindoo, Greek, and Roman Faith

Blights

Pestle-and-Mortar Sugar-MillsWashing away of the Soil

Interview with the Chiefs of JhnsDisputed Succession

Haunted Villages

Interview with the Rj of DatiyFiscal Errors of StatesmenThieves and Robbers by Profession

Sporting at DatiyFidelity of Followers to their Chiefs in IndiaLaw of Primogeniture wanting among Muhammadans

'Bhmiwat'

The Suicide-Relations between Parents and Children in India

Gwlior Plain once the Bed of a LakeTameness of Peacocks

Gwlior and its Government

[2]
Contest for Empire between the Sons of Shah Jahn

[2]
Aurangzb and Murd Defeat their Father's Army near Ujain

[2]
Dr Marches in Person against his Brothers, and is Defeated

[2]
Dr Retreats towards LahoreIs robbed by the JtsTheir Character

[2]
Shh Jahn Imprisoned by his Two Sons, Aurangzb and Murd

[2]
Aurangzb Throws off the Mask, Imprisons his Brother Murd, and Assumes the Government of the Empire

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