cultivated, the net revenue brought to the treasury is about five-
sixths of the gross collections; and these collections are equal to
the whole annual rent of the land; for every man by whom the land is
held or cultivated is a mere tenant at will, liable every season to
be turned out, to give place to any other man that may offer more for
the holding.

There is nowhere to be seen upon the land any useful or ornamental
work, calculated to attach the people to the soil or to their
villages; and, as hardly any of the recruits for the regiments are
drawn from the peasantry of the country, the agricultural classes
have nowhere any feeling of interest in the welfare or existence of
the government. I am persuaded that there is not a single village in
all the Gwalior dominions in which nine-tenths of the people would
not be glad to see that government destroyed, under the persuasion
that they could not possibly have a worse, and would be very likely
to find a better.

The present force at Gwalior consists of three regiments of infantry,
under Colonel Alexander; six under the command of Apaji, the adopted
son of the late Bala Bai;[14] eleven under Colonel Jacobs and his
son; five under Colonel Jean Baptiste Filose; two under the command
of the Mamu Sahib, the maternal uncle of the Maharaja; three in what
is called Babu Baoli's camp; in all thirty regiments, consisting,
when complete, of six hundred men each, with four field-pieces. The
'Jinsi', or artillery, consists of two hundred guns of different
calibre. There are but few corps of cavalry, and these are not
considered very efficient, I believe.[15]

Robbers and murderers of all descriptions have always been in the
habit of taking the field in India immediately after the festival of
the Dasahra,[16] at the end of October, from the sovereign of a state
at the head of his armies, down to the leader of a little band of
pickpockets from the corner of some obscure village. All invoke the
Deity, and take the auspices to ascertain his will, nearly in the
same way; and all expect that he will guide them successfully through
their enterprises, as long as they find the omens favourable. No one
among them ever dreams that his undertaking can be less acceptable to
the Deity than that of another, provided he gives him the same due
share of what he acquires in his thefts, his robberies, or his
conquests, in sacrifices and offerings upon his shrines, and in
donations to his priests.[