ave such ghastly
chasms and ravines on either side, that their waters are hardly ever
available in due season for irrigation. It is this characteristic of
the rivers of Central India that makes such lakes so valuable to the
people, particularly in seasons of drought.[l8] The river Nerbudda
has been known to rise seventy feet in the course of a couple of days
in the rains; and, during the season when its waters are wanted for
irrigation, they can nowhere be found within that [distance] of the
surface; while a level piece of ground fit for irrigation is rarely
to be met with within a mile of the stream.[19]

The people appeared to improve as we advanced farther into
Bundelkhand in appearance, manners, and intelligence. There is a bold
bearing about the Bundelas, which at first one is apt to take for
rudeness or impudence, but which in time he finds not to be so.

The employes of the Raja were everywhere attentive, frank, and
polite; and the peasantry seemed no longer inferior to those of our
Sagar and Nerbudda territories. The females of almost all the
villages through which we passed came out with their _Kalas_ in
procession to meet us--one of the most affecting marks of respect
from the peasantry for their superiors that I know. One woman carries
on her head a brass jug, brightly polished, full of water; while all
the other families of the village crowd around her, and sing in
chorus some rural song, that lasts from the time the respected
visitor comes in sight till he disappears. He usually puts into the
Kalas a rupee to purchase 'gur' (coarse sugar), of which all the
females partake, as a sacred offering to the sex. No member of the
other sex presumes to partake of it, and during the chorus all the
men stand aloof in respectful silence. This custom prevails all over
India, or over all parts of it that I have seen; and yet I have
witnessed a Governor-General of India, with all his suite, passing by
this interesting group, without knowing or asking what it was. I
lingered behind, and quietly put my silver into the jug, as if from
the Governor-General.[20]

The man who administers the government over these seven villages in
all its branches, civil, criminal, and fiscal, receives a salary of
only two hundred rupees a year. He collects the revenues on the part
of Government; and, with the assistance of the heads and the elders
of the villages, adjusts all petty matters of dispute among the
people, both civil and crimin