e detritus it is chiefly
formed. Raghunath Rao told me that the wish of the people in the
castle to adopt a child as the successor to his nephew arose from the
desire to escape the scrutiny into the past accounts of disbursements
which he might be likely to order. I told him that I had myself no
doubt that he would be declared the Raja, and urged him to turn all
his thoughts to the future, and to allow no inquiries to be made into
the past, with a view to gratify either his own resentment, or that
of others; that the Rajas of Jhansi had hitherto been served by the
most respectable, able, and honourable men in the country, while the
other chiefs of Bundelkhand could get no man of this class to do
their work for them--that this was the only court in Bundelkhand in
which such men could be seen, simply because it was the only one in
which they could feel themselves secure--while other chiefs
confiscated the property of ministers who had served them with
fidelity, on the pretence of embezzlement; the wealth thus acquired,
however, soon disappearing, and its possessors being obliged either
to conceal it or go out of the country to enjoy it. Such rulers thus
found their courts and capitals deprived of all those men of wealth
and respectability who adorned the courts of princes in other
countries, and embellished, not merely their capitals, but the face
of their dominions in general with their chateaus and other works of
ornament and utility. Much more of this sort passed between us, and
seemed to make an impression upon him; for he promised to do all that
I had recommended to him. Poor man! he can have but a short and
miserable existence, for that dreadful disease, the leprosy, is
making sad inroads in his System already.[14] His uncle, Raghunath
Rao, was afflicted with it; and, having understood from the priests
that by _drowning_ himself in the Ganges (taking the 'samadh'), he
should remove all traces of it from his family, he went to Benares,
and there drowned himself, some twenty years ago. He had no children,
and is said to have been the first of his family in whom the disease
showed itself.[15]

Notes:

1. December, 1835.

2. Now the head-quarters of the British district of the same name,
and also of the Indian Midland Railway. Since the opening of this
railway and the restoration of the Gwalior fort to Sindhia in 1886,
the importance of Jhansi, both civil and military, has much
increased. The native town was