good deal of talk with the cultivators as I
walked through the fields in the evenings; and they seemed to dwell
much upon the good faith which is observed by the farmers and
cultivators in the Honourable Company's territories, and the total
absence of it in those of Sindhia's, where no work, requiring an
outlay of capital from the land, is, in consequence, ever thought of-
-both farmers and cultivators engaging from year to year, and no
farmer ever feeling secure of his lease for more than one.

Notes:

1. December, 1835.

2. The anthor's favourite theory. See _ante_, Chapter 14 note 7,
Chapter 24 note 6, on the formation of black cotton soil. The Gwalior
plain is covered with this soil.

3. It has a very desolate appearance. The Indian Midland Railway now
passes through Gwalior.

4. In many parts of India, especially in Mathura (Mattra) on the
Jumna, and the neighbouring districts, the peacock is held strictly
sacred, and shooting one would be likely to cause a riot. Tavernier
relates a story of a rich Persian merchant being beaten to death by
the Hindoos of Gujarat for shooting a peacock. (Tavernier, _Travels_,
transl. Ball, vol. i, p. 70.) the bird is regarded as the vehicle of
the Hindoo god of war, variously called Kumara, Skanda, or Kartikeya.
the editor, like the author, has observed that in Bundelkhand no
objection is raised to the shooting of peacocks by any one who cares
for such poor sport.

5. In British India the manufacture of salt can be practised only by
persons duly licensed.

6. The Revenue Settlement Regulations now in force in British India
provide liberally for the encouragement of groves, and hundred of
miles of road are annually planted with trees.

7. Sanitation did not trouble native states in those days.

CHAPTER 36

Gwalior and its Government.

On the 22nd,[1] we came on fourteen miles to Gwalior, over some
ranges of sandstone hills, which are seemingly continuations of the
Vindhyan range. Hills of indurated brown and red iron clay repose
upon and intervene between these ranges, with strata generally
horizontal, but occasionally bearing signs of having been shaken by
internal convulsions. These convulsions are also indicated by some
dykes of compact basalt which cross the road.[2]

Nothing can be more unprepossessing than the approach to Gwalior; the
hills being naked, black, and ugly, with rounded tops devoid of grass
or shrubs, and the soil of the valleys a poor red dus