RAJPUTS AND THE HISTORY OF RAJPCTTANA. 



83 



madness. There is a limit to human endurance, but to-day 

 that limit was death. So the ghastly sacrifice was 

 consummated, until only fifteen remained alive, and these, 

 steadfast to the end, returned for the last time to the shambles 

 of self-immolation, and found the death they sought. Baber, 

 who was the conqueror at Biana, owed that victory, which gave 

 him India, to his artillery and to the treachery of some of the 

 supporters of his valiant antagonist, Sanga Rana of Meywar, 

 and perhaps to the want of general discipline of the foe, and 

 not to any decay in their courage, for which he had the greatest 

 admiration. All writers up to the end of the eighteenth 

 century speak in similar terms, but when the new century 

 dawned the incursions of the Mahrattas, aided as they were by 

 internal dissensions of the Rajput princes, and strengthened by 

 the infantry and artillery under the European adventurers,, 

 who had trained them, completely demoralised the race, so that 

 Skinner, who saw " the brave Surajbanses, or the children of the 

 Sun," in their prime in 1798, in 1832 says, " How much are 

 they now fallen. Chiefs, no longer brave leaders, but either 

 boys or men sunk in vice or debauchery, guided by women or 

 Kamdars or agents — Udaipur the only exception." Very 

 shortly afterwards Dr. Irvine of Ajmere wrote of the courage 

 of the Rajput as having been very much overrated, and as 

 having been at all times due in a great measure to the use of 

 opium and other stimulants, but their bravery was a matter of 

 common knowledge long before opium was in use according to 

 Tod, and was exercised under circumstances which were quite 

 independent of such adventitious support. The Rajput takes 

 a dose of opium before an engagement as an almost sacramental 

 right and in part, as a valiant man of the race told me, for 

 medical reasons. 



Be that as it may, I think no one who knows the people 

 would not be glad to lead such men in a charge, being certain 

 that he would be followed to the death. The Rajput is 

 impulsive, easily deceived by a wily foe, as the emperors knew 

 well, having on several important occasions detached chiefs 

 from the cause of their own enemies by the stratagem of allowing 

 misleading, or forged, letters to fall into their hands. He is too 

 prone to take offence and will fight with his brethren for land 

 as well as for every insult, whether it is true or false, so 

 unreflecting is he, but he is generous to the foe, often giving 

 away advantages in a reckless fashion. He has no idea of 

 discipline, but he will die for the most quixotic and trivial 

 reasons in. defence of his honour and of that of his immediate 



