n alive and well. Some one had said he found
great relief from plunging into the stream during the paroxysms of
the fever; others followed the example, and some remained for half an
hour at a time, and the sufferers generally found relief. The streams
and tanks throughout the districts between the Ganges and Jumna
became crowded, till the propitiatory offering to the spirit of the
living Jeswant Rao Holkar were [sic] found equally good, and far less
troublesome to those who had horses that must have got their grain,
whether in Holkar's name or not.'

There is no doubt that the great mass of those who had nothing but
their horses and their _good blades_ to depend upon for their
subsistence did most fervently pray throughout India for the safety
of this Maratha chief, when he fled before Lord Lake's army; for they
considered that, with his fall, the Company's dominion would become
everywhere securely established, and that good soldiers would be at a
discount. '_Company ke amal men kuchh rozgar nahin hai_,'--'There is
no employment in the Company's dominion,' is a common maxim, not only
among the men of the sword and the spear, but among those merchants
who lived by supporting native civil and military establishments with
the luxuries and elegancies which, under the new order of things,
they have no longer the means to enjoy.

The noisy _puja_ (worship), about which our conversation began, took
place at Sagar in April, 1832, while I was at that station. More than
four-fifths of the people of the city and cantonments had been
affected by a violent influenza, which commenced with a distressing
cough, was followed by fever, and, in some cases, terminated in
death. I had an application from the old Queen Dowager of Sagar, who
received a pension of ten thousand pounds a year from the British
Government,[9] and resided in the city, to allow of a _noisy_
religious procession to implore deliverance from this great calamity.
Men, women, and children in this procession were to do their utmost
to add to the noise by 'raising their voices in _psalmody_', beating
upon their brass pots and pans with all their might, and discharging
fire-arms where they could get them; and before the noisy crowd was
to be driven a buffalo, which had been purchased by a general
subscription, in order that every family might participate in the
merit. They were to follow it out for eight miles, where it was to be
turned loose for any man who would take it