r they be from the prince or the
peasant.[7] If a sovereign prince sends proposals to a sovereign
princess, they must be conveyed through the medium of the barber, or
they will never be considered as done in due form, as likely to prove
propitious. The prince will, of course, send some relation or high
functionary with him; but in all the credentials the barber must be
named as the principal functionary. Hence it was that Her Majesty was
supposed to have sent a barber's daughter to meet her husband.

The 'Mahatam' (greatness or holiness) of the Ganges is said, as I
have already stated, to be on the wane, and not likely to endure
sixty years longer; while that of the Nerbudda is on the increase,
and in sixty years is entirely to supersede the sanctity of her
sister. If the valley of the Nerbudda should continue for sixty years
longer under such a government as it has enjoyed since we took
possession of it in 1817,[8] it may become infinitely more rich, more
populous, and more beautiful than that of the Nile ever was; and, if
the Hindoos there continue, as I hope they will, to acquire wealth
and honour under a rule to which they are so much attached, the
prophecy may be realized in as far as the increase of honour paid to
the Nerbudda is concerned. But I know no ground to expect that the
reverence[9] paid to the Ganges will diminish, unless education and
the concentration of capital in manufactures should work an important
change in the religious feelings and opinions of the people along the
course of that river; although this, it must be admitted, is a
consummation which may be looked for more speedily on the banks of
the Ganges than on those of a stream like the Nerbudda, which is
neither navigable at present nor, in my opinion, capable of being
rendered so. Commerce and manufactures, and the concentration of
capital in the maintenance of the new communities employed in them,
will, I think, be the great media through which this change will be
chiefly effected; and they are always more likely to follow the
course of rivers that are navigable than that of rivers which are
not.[10]

Notes:

1. Amarkantak, formerly in the Sohagpur pargana of the Bilaspur
District of the Central Provinces, is situated on a high tableland,
and is a famous place of pilgrimage. The temples are described by
Beglar in _A.S.R._, vol. vii, pp. 227-34, pl. xx, xxi. The hill has
been transferred to the Riwa State (_Central Provinces Gazetteer_