al. Disputes of a more serious character
are sent to be adjusted at the capital by the Raja and his ministers.
The person who reigns over the seven villages of the lake is about
thirty years of age, of the Rajput caste, and, I think, one of the
finest young men I have ever seen. His ancestors have served the
Orchha State in the same station for seven generations; and he tells
me that he hopes his posterity will serve them [_sic_] for as many
more, provided they do not forfeit their claims to do so by their
infidelity or incapacity. This young man seemed to have the respect
and affection of every member of the little communities of the
villages through which we passed, and it was evident that he deserved
their attachment. I have rarely seen any similar signs of attachment
to one of our own native officers. This arises chiefly from the
circumstance of their being less frequently placed in authority among
those upon whose good feelings and opinions their welfare and
comfort, as those of their children, are likely permanently to
depend. In India, under native rule, office became hereditary,
because officers expended the whole of their incomes in religious
ceremonies, or works of ornament and utility, and left their families
in hopeless dependence upon the chief in whose service they had
laboured all their lives, while they had been educating their sons
exclusively with the view of serving that chief in the same capacity
that their fathers had served him before them. It is in this case,
and this alone, that the law of primogeniture is in force in
India.[21] Among Muhammadans, as well as Hindoos, all property, real
and personal, is divided equally among the children;[22] but the
duties of an office will not admit of the same subdivision; and this,
therefore, when hereditary, as it often is, descends to the eldest
son with the obligation of providing for the rest of the family. The
family consists of all the members who remain united to the parent
stock, including the widows and orphans of the sons or brothers who
were so up to the time of their death.[23]

The old 'chobdar', or silver-stick bearer, who came with us from the
Raja, gets fifteen rupees a month, and his ancestors have served the
Raja for several generations. The Diwan, who has charge of the
treasury, receives only one thousand rupees a year, and the Bakshi,
or paymaster of the army, who seems at present to rule the state as
the prime favourite, the same. These l