84 



COL. T. HOLBEIN HENDLEY, C.I.E., ON THE 



lord, or for any cause which the latter takes up, though he does 

 not so readily fight for country as we regard the word. Tod 

 tells us how the Kajput regards the honour of the clan, or of 

 his own family, as the most pressing of all duties. 



Two illustrations will suffice to enforce the above remarks. 

 The Maharana of Udaipur had the son of the great Moghul, 

 Aurungzeb (Orme says it was the emperor himself) in his power 

 in the mountains, as well as a favourite queen. Although their 

 detention would have been of the utmost value to him, he let 

 both go without making any terms... Two great nobles claimed 

 the right of leading the van in war. The chief, not wishing to 

 offend either of them, said that he who was first inside of a town 

 which was then being besieged should lead in the future. One 

 advanced to the wall, the other tried to enter by the gate, but 

 the latter finding his elephant would not attempt to burst it in 

 on account of the long spikes of iron with which it was studded, 

 and stimulated into frenzy by the distant sound of the war cry 

 of his rival, threw himself upon the sharp points and commanded 

 his mahout, or elephant driver, to press forward through his 

 body, but in the moment of death he had still the mortification 

 of hearing that his antagonist was already within the 

 walls. 



It is a noble sight to see the Eajputs in full martial array 

 on the open plain. Some faint idea of their splendour I 

 witnessed thirty years ago when, after his father's death, the 

 late Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar, accompanied by the 

 whole of his court and his nineteen brothers, went out of 

 Jodhpur to escort the then Chief of Jaipur, Maharaja Earn 

 Singh, into his capital. The young nobles were mounted on 

 camels or horses decked with the gayest trappings, and with 

 the tails of the wild ox fastened in front of their saddles. 

 Elephants carried the royal standard and insignia of Marwar, 

 and before the chiefs and those who accompanied them ran 

 crowds of horse and foot, while from all sides were heard the 

 plaudits of the people, accompanied by the discharge of muskets 

 and similar weapons and the booming of cannon from the fort 

 walls. Such is the ceremony of the Peshwai or Istakbal. 

 Something of the ancient glories was seen at the famous 

 Imperial Assemblage of Delhi, and a faint, though modernized, 

 version of them in the same capital at the Coronation Darbar of 

 1903, when an unfortunate chief, who wore the national dress, 

 the garb of the Moghul Court, as he ascended the Vice-regal 

 dais, excited the mirth of the unthinking crowd. 



Most terrible is the picture drawn for us of the condition 



