183 9.] History of the Gurka Mundala Rdjas. 629 



able to keep her position in the defile, till her troops could recover 

 from the shock of the first discharges of artillery, and the supposed 

 death of the young prince, for by one of those extraordinary coinci- 

 dences of circumstances which are by the vulgar taken for miracles, 

 the river in the rear of her position, which had during the night been 

 nearly dry, began to rise the moment the action commenced, and 

 when she received her wound was reported unfordable. She saw 

 that her troops had no alternative but to force back the enemy 

 through the pass or perish, since it would be almost impossible for 

 any of them to escape over this mountain torrent under the mouths 

 of their cannon ; and consequently, that her plan of retreat upon 

 Mundala was entirely frustrated by this unhappy accident of the 

 unseasonable rise of the river. 



Her elephant-driver repeatedly urged her in vain to allow him to 

 attempt the ford, " no" replied the queen " I will either die here or 

 force the enemy back," at this moment she received an arrow in the 

 neck ; and seeing her troops give way and the enemy closing around 

 her, she snatched a dagger from the driver and plunged it in her 

 own bosom. 



She was interred at the place where she fell, and on her tomb to 

 this day the passing stranger thinks it necessary to place as a votive 

 offering, one of the fairest he can find of those beautiful specimens of 

 ; white crystal, in which the hills in this quarter abound. Two rocks 

 lie by her side which are supposed by the people to be her drums 

 j converted into stone ; and strange stories are told of their being still 

 occasionally heard to sound in the stillness of the night by the people 

 of the nearest villages. Manifest signs of the carnage of that 

 day are exhibited in the rude tombs which cover all the ground 

 from that of the queen all the way back to the bed of the river, 

 whose unseasonble rise prevented her retreat upon the garrison of 

 Mundala. 



Her son had been taken off the field, and was, unperceived by the 



ienemy conveyed back to the palace at Chouragurh*, to which Asuf, 



) returned immediately after his victory and laid siege. The young 



(prince was killed in the siege ; and the women set fire to the place 



under the apprehension of suffering dishonor if they fell alive into the 



bands of the enemy. Two females are said to have escaped, the 



sister of the queen, and a young princess who had been betrothed to 



* Chouragurh , a fort which overlooks the valley of the Nerbudda from the 

 arow of the southern or Satpora range of hills, about seventy miles west from 

 Jabulpore. 



4 M 



