evidently much disappointed, for he
was really very anxious, as he knew his master the Raja was, that we
should have a good day's sport. On our way back I made him ride by my
side, and talk to me about Datiya, since he had been unable to show
me any sport. I got his thoughts into a train that I knew would
animate him, if he had any soul at all for poetry or poetical
recollections, as I thought he had. 'The noble works in palaces and
temples,' said he, 'which you see around you, Sir, mouldering in
ruins, were built by princes who had beaten emperors in battle, and
whose spirits still hover over and protect the place. Several times,
under the late disorders which preceded your paramount rule in
Hindustan, when hostile forces assembled around us, and threatened
our capital with destruction, lights and elephants innumerable were
seen from the tops of those battlements, passing and repassing under
the walls, ready to defend them had the enemy attempted an assault.
Whenever our soldiers endeavoured to approach near them, they
disappeared; and everybody knew that they were spirits of men like
Birsingh Deo and Hardaul Lala that had come to our aid, and we never
lost confidence.' It is easy to understand the devotion of men to
their chiefs when they believe their progenitors to have been
demigods, and to have been faithfully served by their ancestors for
several generations. We neither have, nor ever can have, servants so
personally devoted to us as these men are to their chiefs, though we
have soldiers who will fight under our banners with as much courage
and fidelity. They know that their grandfathers served the
grandfathers of these chiefs, and they hope their grandchildren will
serve their grandsons. The one feels as much pride and pleasure in so
serving, as the other in being so served; and both hope that the link
which binds them may never be severed. Our servants, on the contrary,
private and public, are always in dread that some accident, some
trivial fault, or some slight offence, not to be avoided, will sever
for ever the link that binds them to their master.

The fidelity of the military classes of the people of India to their
immediate chief, or leader, whose _salt they eat_, has been always
very remarkable, and commonly bears little relation to his _moral
virtues_, or conduct to _his_ superiors. They feel that it is their
duty to serve him who feeds and protects them and their families in
all situations, and under