no more, threw the
children over the high wall, by which they were dashed to pieces. The
poor widows were tendered as wives to four sweepers, the lowest of
all low castes; but the tribe of sweepers would not suffer any of its
members to take the widows of men of such high caste and station as
wives, notwithstanding the tempting offer of five hundred rupees as a
present, and a village in rent-free tenure.[8] I secured a promise
while at Tehri that these poor widows should be provided for, as they
had, up to that time, been preserved by the good feeling of a little
community of the lowest of castes, on whom they had been bestowed as
a punishment worse than death, inasmuch as it would disgrace the
whole class to which they belonged, the Parihar Rajputs.[9]

Tehri is a wretched town, without one respectable dwelling-house
tenanted beyond the palace, or one merchant, or even shopkeeper of
capital and credit. There are some tolerable houses unoccupied and in
ruins; and there are a few neat temples built as tombs, or cenotaphs,
in or around the city, if city it can be called. The stables and
accommodations for all public establishments seem to be all in the
same ruinous state as the dwelling-houses. The revenues of the state
are spent in feeding Brahmans and religious mendicants of all kinds;
and in such idle ceremonies as those at which the Raja and all his
court have just been assisting--ceremonies which concentrate for a
few days the most useless of the people of India, the devotee
followers (Bairagis) of the god Vishnu, and tend to no purpose,
either useful or ornamental, to the state or to the people.

This marriage of a stone to a shrub, which takes place every year, is
supposed to cost the Raja, at the most moderate estimate, three lakhs
of rupees a year, or one-fourth of his annual revenue.[10] The
highest officers of which his government is composed receive small
beggarly salaries, hardly more than sufficient for their subsistence;
and the money they make by indirect means they dare not spend like
gentlemen, lest the Raja might be tempted to take their lives in
order to get hold of it. All his feudal barons are of the same tribe
as himself, that is, Rajputs; but they are divided into three clans--
Bundelas, Pawars, and Chandels. A Bundela cannot marry a woman of his
own clan, he must take a wife from the Pawars or Chandels; and so of
the other two clans--no member of one can take a wife from his own
clan, but must