812 March between Mhow and Saugor, 1838. [Oct. 



the Otes and Awuts of the great families, are constantly confounded 

 with their roots, and you will hardly ever get a list of the so-called 

 36, from a Bhat of this quarter, without his including in it the Chon- 

 dawuts andSuktawuts, and increasing the number of names to 50, 60, 

 or more. The most respectable of these classes themselves, petty rajas, 

 potails, &c. are in the highest degree ignorant of their heraldry, — pre- 

 senting in this respect a striking contrast to the purer Rajpoots of 

 Mewar; a large proportion of whom have the gotra acharya at their 

 finger ends ; while many will repeat the names of their ancestors for 

 ages back.* 



From Ashta to Sehore we found nothing deserving mention ; but the' 

 antiquity ascribed by Tod to Bhopal, stimulated our zeal to search for 

 Budh relics : and we began to indulge in visions of success, on finding 

 a statue of that sect by the road side, half way between Sehore and 

 Bhopal — and on being told, that the hills round the city abounded in 

 caves, in some of which we should find inscriptions : yet, after all, our 

 hopes were not realized. The inscriptions in the caves, which were 

 all in modern Nagari, proved to be chiefly dates, names, and prenams, 

 excepting a few of greater length; only one of which however was at 

 all decypherable.t The caves, mere cavities without carving, have 

 a few of them been walled in and inhabited. In one near the old fort, 

 a fakir lately made himself a very cosey dwelling place ; but the super- 

 stitious women of the town so pestered him, that he fairly ran away 

 from them. 



The first impression of a stranger on visiting the city, will be by no 

 means a favourable one. It is entered, — either by a hard, uneven, rocky 

 way (road it cannot be called) with considerable risk to one's horse's 

 knees,— or through heavy sand and mud ; for the sandstone when once 

 broken, soon crumbles to dust, and no one will take the trouble of 

 making a firm road, from the trap and kankur which might be easily 

 brought from the neighbourhood. Being built on a hill, there is hard- 

 ly a public level space in the whole town, with the exception of a 

 spot used as a manege, little bigger than a London riding school; 

 and the narrow streets are choked with dirt. 



* Some of the Jain heads of colleges have astonishing memories on these matters, 

 and assisted by a Memoria Technica will repeat such long lists of names— of their 

 acharyas for instance, or the minute divisions of the ginats— and such whole volumes 

 of verse and prose, as to reconcile our faith to the almost incredible accounts of the 

 oral preservation of their learning, by the Budhs, the Druids, and the Greeks. 



f Insc: No 2. It is hardly worth sending, but to shew the modern character. 



