cture to
yourself a Raja who does not get drunk without some good reason, who
is not ostentatiously unfaithful to his five-and-twenty queens and his
five-and-twenty grand duchesses, who does not festoon his thorax and
abdomen with curious cutlery and jewels, who does not paint his face
with red ochre, and who sometimes takes a sidelong glance at his
affairs, and there is no reason why you should not think of such a one
as an Indian king. India is not very fastidious; so long as the
Government is satisfied, the people of India do not much care what the
Rajas are like. A peasant proprietor said to Mr. Caird and me the
other day, "We are poor cultivators; we cannot afford to keep Rajas.
The Rajas are for the Lord Sahib."

The young Maharaja of Kuch Parwani assures me that it is not
considered the thing for a Raja at the present day to govern. "A
really swell Raja amuses himself." One hoards money, another plays at
soldiering, a third is horsey, a fourth is amorous, and a fifth gets
drunk; at least so Kuch Parwani thinks. Please don't say that I told
you this. The Foreign Secretary knows what a high opinion I have of
the Rajas, and indeed he often employs me to whitewash them when they
get into scrapes. "A little playful, perhaps, but no more loyal Prince
in India!" This is the kind of thing I put into the Annual
Administration Reports of the Agencies, and I stick to it. Playful no
doubt, but a more loyal class than the Rajas there is not in India.
They have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British
Rule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a
pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling
below.

The amiable chief in whose house I am staying to-day is exceedingly
simple in his habits. At an early hour he issues from the zenana and
joins two or three of his thakores, or barons, who are on duty at
Court, in the morning draught of opium. They sit in a circle, and a
servant in the centre goes round and pours the _kasumbha_[D] out of a
brass bowl and through a woollen cloth into their hands, out of which
they lap it up. Then a cardamum to take away the acrid after-taste.
One hums drowsily two or three bars of an old-world song; another
clears his throat and spits; the Chief yawns, and all snap their
fingers, to prevent evil spirits skipping into his throat; a late
riser joins the circle, and all, except the Chief, give him
_tazim_--that is, rise and salaam; a coars