Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

104

The low-caste Hindoos are generally fond of drink, when they can get it, but seldom commit crime under its influence.

105

An elephant driver, by reason of his position on the animal, has opportunities for private conversation with his master.

106

Elephant drivers (mahouts) are Muhammadans, who should have no caste, but Indian Musalmāns have become Hinduized, and fallen under the dominion of caste.

107

Darbhanga is in Tirhūt, seventy miles NE. of Dinapore. The Kūsī (Kōsī or Koosee) river rises in the mountains of Nepāl, and falls into the Ganges after a course of about 325 miles. Nāthpur, in the Puraniya (Purneah) District, is a mart for the trade with Nepal.

108

The customary attitude of a suppliant.

109

A small river which falls into the Nerbudda on the right-hand side, at Sānkal. Its general course is south-west.

110

November, 1835.

111

Described in the Gazetteer (1870) as 'a large but decaying village in the Jabalpur district, situated at the foot of the Bhānrer hills, twenty-two miles to the north-west of Jabalpur, on the north side of the Hiran, and on the road to Sāgar'.

112

The convenient restriction of the name Vindhya to the hills north, and of Sātpura to the hills south of the Nerbudda is of modern origin (Manual of the Geology of India, 1st ed., Part I, p. iv). The Sātpura range, thus defined, separates the valley of the Nerbudda from the valleys of the Taptī flowing west, and the Mahānadī flowing east. The Vindhyan sandstones certainly are a formation of immense antiquity, perhaps pre-Silurian. They are azoic, or devoid of fossils; and it is consequently impossible to determine exactly their geological age, or 'horizon' (ibid. p. xxiii). The cappings of basalt, in some cases with laterite superimposed, suggest many difficult problems, which will be briefly discussed in the notes to Chapters 14 and 17.

113

November, 1835.

114

Sangrāmpur is in the Jabalpur District, thirty miles north-west of Jabalpur, or the road to Sāgar, The village of Jabērā is thirty-nine miles from Jabalpur.

115

Similar lakes, formed by means of huge dams thrown across valleys, are numerous in the Central Provinces and Bundēlkhand. The embankments of some of these lakes are maintained by the Indian Government, and the water is distributed for irrigation. Many of the lakes are extremely beautiful, and the ruins of grand temples and palaces are often found on their banks. Several of the embankments are known to have been built by the Chandēl princes between A.D. 800 and 1200, and some are believed to be the work of an earlier Parihār dynasty.

116

A.D. 1658—1707. Aurangzēb, though possibly credited with more destruction than he accomplished, did really destroy many hundreds of Hindoo temples. A historian mentions the demolition of 262 at three places in Rājputāna in a single year (A.D. 1679-80) (E. and D. vii, 188).

117

This name is used as a synonym for Bheraghāt, ante, Chapter 1, paragraph 1. It is written Beragur in the author's text. The author, in Ramaseeana, Introduction, p. 77, note, describes the Gaurī-Sankar sculpture as being 'at Beragur on the Nerbudda river'.

118

Gaurī is one of the many names of Pārvatī, or Dēvī, the consort of the god Siva, Sankar, or Māhadēo, who rides upon the bull Nandī.

119

This village seems to be the same as Tewar, the ancient Tripura, 'six miles to the west of Jabalpur; and on the south side of the Bombay road' (A. S. R., vol. ix, p. 57). The adjacent ruins are known by the name of Karanbēl.

120

The pillar bears an inscription showing that it was erected during the reign of Budha Gupta, in the year 165 of the Gupta era, corresponding to A.D. 484-5. This, and the other important remains of antiquity at Eran, are fully described in A. S. R., vol. vii, p. 88; vol. x, pp. 76-90, pl. xxiii-xxx; and vol. xiv, p. 149, pl. xxxi; also in Fleet, Gupta Inscriptions (Calcutta, 1888). The material of the pillar is red sandstone. According to Cunningham the total height is 43 feet. The peculiar double-faced, two-armed image on the summit does not seem to be intended for Krishna, but I cannot say what the meaning is (H. F. A., p. 174, fig. 121).

121

During the wars with the Marāthās and Pindhārīs, which ended in 1819.

122

After we left Jubbulpore, the old Rānī used to receive much kind and considerate attention from the Hon. Mrs. Shore, a very amiable woman, the wife of the Governor-General's representative, the Hon. Mr. Shore, a very worthy and able member of the Bengal Civil Service. [W. H. S.] For notice of Mr. Shore, see note at end of Chapter 13.

123

See the author's paper entitled 'History of the Gurha Mundala Rajas', in J. A. S. B., vol. vi (1837), p. 621, and the article 'Mandla' in C. P. Gazetteer (1870).

124

Kūrai is on the route from Sāgar to Nasīrābād, thirty-one miles WNW. of the former.

125

The 'Sāgar and Nerbudda Territories', comprising the Sāgar, Jabalpur, Hoshangābād, Seonī, Damoh, Narsinghpur, and Baitūl Mandlā Districts, are now under the Local Administration of the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, established in 1861 by Lord Canning, who appointed Sir Richard Temple Chief Commissioner. These territories were at first administered by a semi-political agency, but were afterwards, in 1852, placed under the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces (now the Agra Province in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh), to whom they remained subject until 1861. They had been ceded by the Marāthās to the British in 1818, and the cession was confirmed by the treaty of 1826.

126

All official presents given by native chiefs to the Governor- General are credited to the 'toshakhāna', from which also are taken the official gifts bestowed in return.

127

By resolution of Government, dated January 10, 1836, the author was appointed General Superintendent of the Operations against Thuggee, with his head-quarters at Jubbulpore.

128

November, 1835.

129

This observation does not hold good in densely populated tracts, which are now numerous.

130

These 'estates of villages' are known by the Persian name of 'mauza'. The topographical division of the country into 'mauzas', which may be also translated by the terms 'townlands' or 'townships', has developed spontaneously. Some 'mauzas' are uninhabited, and are cultivated by the residents of neighbouring villages.

131

In some parts of Central and Southern India, the 'Gārpagrī', who charms away hail-storms from the crops, and 'Bhūmkā', who charms away tigers from the people and their cattle, are added to the number of village servants, [W. H .S.] 'In many parts of Berār and Mālwa every village has its "bhūmkā", whose office it is to charm the tigers; and its "gārpagrī", whose duty it is to keep off the hail-storms. They are part of the village servants, and paid by the village community, After a severe hail-storm took place in the district of Narsinghpur, of which I had the civil charge in 1823, the office of "gārpagrī" was restored to several villages in which it had ceased for several generations. They are all Brahmans, and take advantage of such calamities to impress the people with an opinion of their usefulness. The "bhūmkās" are all Gōnds, or people of the woods, who worship their own Lares and Penates' (Ramaseeana, Introduction, p. 13. note).

132

Very often the Government of the country know nothing of these tenures; the local authorities allowed them to continue as a perquisite of their own. The holders were willing to pay them a good share of the rent, assured that they would be resumed if reported by the local authorities to the Government. These authorities consented to take a moderate share of the rent, assured that they should get little or nothing if the lands were resumed. [W. H. S.] 'Rent' here means 'land-revenue'. Of course, under modern British administration the particulars of all tenures are known and recorded in great detail,

133

Since the author wrote these remarks the legal position of cultivating proprietors and tenants has been largely modified by the pressure of population and a long course of legislation. The Rent Acts, which began with Act x of 1859, are now numerous, and have been accompanied by a series of Land Revenue Acts, and many collateral enactments. All the problems of the Irish land question are familiar topics to the Anglo-Indian courts and legislatures.

134

This proposition no doubt was true for the 'Sāgar and Nerbudda Territories' in 1835, but it cannot be predicated of the thickly populated and settled districts in the Gangetic valley without considerable qualification. Examples of long-established, unchanged, well-known rent-rates are not uncommon.

135

In recent years this task of 'mapping the waves of the ocean' has been attempted. Every periodical settlement of the land revenue in Northern India since 1833 has been accompanied by the preparation of detailed village maps, showing each field, even the tiniest, a few yards square, with a separate number. In many cases these maps were roughly constructed under non-professional supervision, but in many districts they have been prepared by the cadastral branch of the Survey Department. The difficulty mentioned by the author has been severely felt, and it constantly happens that beautiful maps become useless in four or five years. Efforts are made to insert annual corrections in copies of the maps through the agency of the village accountants, and the 'kānūngos', or officers who supervise them, but the task is an enormous one, and only partial success is attained. In addition to the maps, records of great bulk are annually prepared which give the most minute details about every holding and each field.

136

The Permanent Settlement of Bengal, effected under the orders of Lord Cornwallis in 1793, was soon afterwards extended to the province of Benares, now included in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Illusory provisions were made to protect the rights of tenants, but nothing at all effectual was done till the passing of Act x of 1859, which has been largely modified by later legislation.

137

The general principle here stated of respect for personal substantive law in civil matters is still the guide of the Indian Legislature, but the accumulation of Privy Council and High Court rulings, combined with the action of codes, has effected considerable gradual change. Direct legislation has anglicized the law of contract, and has modified, though not so largely, the law of marriage, inheritance, and succession.

138

In the author's time the courts of the East India Company still followed the Muhammadan criminal law, as modified by the Regulations. The Indian Penal Code of 1869 placed the substantive criminal law on a thoroughly scientific basis. This code was framed with such masterly skill that to this day it has needed little material amendment. The first Criminal Procedure Code, passed in 1861, has been twice recast. The law of evidence was codified by Sir James FitzJames Stephen in the Indian Evidence Act of 1870.

139

This proposition, in the editor's opinion, truly states the theory of land tenures in India, and it was a generally accurate statement of actual fact in the author's time. Since then the long continuance of settled government, by fostering the growth of private rights, has tended to obscure the idea of state ownership. The modern revenue codes, instead of postulating the ownership of the state, enact that the claims of the state—that is to say, the land- revenue—are the first charge on the land and its produce. The Malabar coast offers an exception to the general Hindu role of state ownership of land. The Nairs, Coorgs, and Tulus enjoyed full proprietary rights (Dubois, Hindu Manners, &c., 3rd edition (1906), p. 57).

140

Amīr Khān, the Nawāb of Tonk, assigned to his physician, who had cured him of an intermittent fever, lands yielding one thousand rupees a year, in rent-free tenure, and gave him a deed signed by himself and his heir-apparent, declaring expressly that it should descend to him and his heir for ever. He died lately, and his son and successor, who had signed the deed, resumed the estate without ceremony. On being remonstrated with, he said that 'his father, while living, was, of course, master, and could make him sign what he pleased, and give land rent-free to whom he pleased; but his successor must now be considered the best judge whether they could be spared or not; that if lands were to be alienated in perpetuity by every reigning Nawāb for every dose of medicine or dose of prayers that he or the members of his family required, none would soon be left for the payment of the soldiers, or other necessary public servants of any description'. This was told me by the son of the old physician, who was the person to whom the speech was made, his father having died before Amīr Khān. [W. H. S.] Amīr Khān was the famous Pindhārī leader. H. T. Prinsep translated his Memoirs from the Persian of Busawun Lāl (Calcutta, 1832).

141

The ancient deeds of grant, engraved on copper, of which so many have been published within the last hundred years, almost invariably conclude with fearful curses on the head of any rash mortal who may dare to revoke the grant. Usually the pious hope is expressed that, if he should be guilty of such wickedness, he may rot in filth, and be reborn a worm.

142

Revenue officers commonly observe that revenue-free grants, which the author calls rent-free, are often ill cultivated. The simple reason is that the stimulus of the collector's demand is wanting to make the owner exert himself.

143

These leases now carry with them a right of ownership, involving the power of alienation, subject to the lien of the land revenue as a first charge. Conversely, the modern codes lay down the principle that the revenue settlement must be made with the proprietor. The author's rule of agricultural succession by primogeniture in the Nerbudda territories has survived only in certain districts (see post, Chapter 47). The land-revenue law and the law concerning the relations between landlords and tenants have now been more or less successfully codified in each province. Mr. B. H. Baden-Powell's encyclopaedic work The Land Systems of British India (3 volumes: Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892) gives very full information concerning Indian tenures as now existing, and the law applicable to them at the date of publication.

144

Ante, Chapter 9.

145

An orderly, or official messenger, who wears a 'chaprās', or badge of office.

146

On the Nerbudda, fifty miles south-east of Jubbulpore.

147

Of the supposed powers and dispositions of witches among the Romans we have horrible pictures in the 5th Ode of the 6th Book of Horace, and in the 6th Book of Lucan's Pharsalia. [W. H. S.] The reference to Horace should be to the 5th Epode. The passage in the Pharsalia, Book VI, lines 420-830, describes the proceedings of Thessalian witches.

148

Such awkward incidents of medical practice are not heard of nowadays.

149

The population of Jabalpur (including cantonments) has increased steadily, and in 1911 was 100,651, as compared with 84,556 in 1891, and 76,023 in 1881.

150

Katāk, or Cuttack, a district, with town of same name, in Orissa.

151

In the Bilāspur district of the Central Provinces. The distance in a direct line between Mandlā and Katāk is about 400 miles.

152

Shāhgarh was formerly a petty native state, with town of same name. The chief joined the rebels in 1857, with the result that his dominions were confiscated, and distributed between the districts of Sāgar and Damoh in the Central Provinces, and Jhānsī (formerly Lalitpur) in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The town of Shāhgarh is in the Sāgar district.

153

Rāipur is the chief town of the district of the same name in the Central Provinces, which was not finally annexed to the British dominions until 1854, when the Nāgpur State lapsed.

154

Afterwards Captain H. A. Sleeman, He died in 1905.

155

Of Garhā, see ante, Chapter 9, prior to note 10.

156

The real 'kalpa', which now stands in the garden of the god Indra in the first heaven, was one of the fourteen varieties found at the churning of the ocean by the gods and demons. It fell to the share of Indra. [W. H. S.] The tree referred to in the text perhaps may be the Erythrina arborescens, or coral-tree, which sheds its leaves after the hot weather.

157

That is to say, orderlies, or 'chaprāsīs'.

158

Every Hindoo is thoroughly convinced that the names of Rām and his consort Sītā are written on this tree by the hand of God, and nine-tenths of the Musalmāns believe the same.

Happy the man who sees a God employedIn all the good and ill that chequer life,Resolving all events, with their effectsAnd manifold results, into the willAnd arbitration wise of the Supreme.COWPER. [W. H. S.]

The quotation is from The Task, Book II, line 161.

159

Sādī (Sa'dī) is the poetic name, or nom de plume, of the celebrated Persian poet, whose proper name is said to have been Shaikh Maslah-ud-dīn, or, according to other authorities, Sharf-ud-dīn Mislah. He was born about A.D. 1194, and is supposed to have lived for more than a hundred years. Some writers say that he died in A.D. 1292. His best known works are the Gulistān and Būstān. The editor has failed to trace in either of these works the couplet quoted. Sādī says in the Gulistān, ii. 26, 'That heart which has an ear is full of the divine mystery. It is not the nightingale that alone serenades his rose; for every thorn on the rose-bush is a tongue in his or God's praise' (Ross's translation).

160

November, 1835.

161

Spelled Dhamow in the author's text. The town, the head- quarters of the district of the same name, is forty-five miles east of Sāgar, and fifty-five miles north-west of Jabalpur. The C. P. Gazetteer (1870) states the population to be 8,563. In 1901 it had grown to 13,335; and the town is still increasing in importance (I. G., 1908). Inscriptions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at Damoh are noticed in A. S. R., vol. xxi, p. 168.

162

The guinea-worm (Filaria medinensis) is a very troublesome parasite, which sometimes grows to a length of three feet. It occurs in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and Turkistan, as well as in India.

163

The Dhīmars (Sanskrit dhīvara, 'fisherman') are the same caste as the Kahārs, or 'bearers'. The boats used by them are commonly 'dugout' canoes, exactly like those used in prehistoric Europe, and now treasured in museums.

164

In the author's time the rupee was worth two shillings, or more, that is to say, the ninth or tenth part of a sovereign. After 1873 the gold value of the rupee fell, so that at times it was worth little more than a shilling. Since 1899 special legislation has succeeded in keeping the rupee practically steady at 1s. 4d. In other words, fifteen rupees are the legal equivalent of a sovereign, and a hundred rupees are worth £6 13s. 4d.

165

A town on the Allahabad and Sāgar road, sixty-one miles north-east of Sāgar. It was the head-quarters of the Damoh district from 1818 to 1835.

166

The chief town of the district of the same name in Bundēlkhand, situated on the Kēn river, ninety-five miles south-west from Allahabad.

167

Worth at that time £450 sterling, or a little more.

168

An unusual mode of procedure for professed Thugs to adopt, who usually strangled their victims with a cloth. Faringia (Feringheea) Brahman was one of the most noted Thug leaders. He is frequently mentioned in the author's Report on the Depredations committed by the Thug Gangs (1840), and the story of the Sujaina crime is fully told in the Introduction to that volume. Faringia became a valuable approver.

169

Lieutenant Brown was suddenly called back to Jubbulpore, and could not himself go to Sujaina. He sent, however, an intelligent native officer to the place, but no man could be induced to acknowledge that he had ever seen the bodies or heard of the affair, though Faringia pointed out to them exactly where they all lay. They said it must be quite a mistake—that such a thing could not have taken place and they know nothing of it. Lieutenant Brown was aware that all this affected ignorance arose entirely from the dread these people have of being summoned to give evidence to any of our district courts of justice; and wrote to the officer in the civil charge of the district to request that he would assure them that their presence would not be required. Mr. Doolan, the assistant magistrate, happened to be going through Sujaina from Sāgar on deputation at the time; and, sending for all the respectable old men of the place, he requested that they would be under no apprehension, but tell him the real truth, as he would pledge himself that not one of them should ever be summoned to any district court to give evidence. They then took him to the spot and pointed out to him where the bodies had been found, and mentioned that the body of the tanner had been burned by his friends. The banker, whose treasure they had been carrying, had an equal dislike to be summoned to court to give evidence, now that he could no longer hope to recover any portion of his lost money; and it was not till after Lieutenant Brown had given him a similar assurance, that he would consent to have his books examined. The loss of the four thousand five hundred rupees was then found entered, with the names of the men who had been killed at Sujaina in carrying it. These are specimens of some of the minor difficulties we had to contend with in our efforts to put down the most dreadful of all crimes. All the prisoners accused of these murders had just been tried for others, or Lieutenant Brown would not have been able to give the pledge he did. [W. H. S.] Difficulties of the same kind beset the administration of criminal justice in India to this day.

170

Of the Marāthās. The district was ceded in 1818.

171

More correctly written Mughal. The term is properly applied to Muhammadans of Turk (Mongol) descent. Such persons commonly affix the title Beg to their names, and often prefix the Persian title Mīrzā.