the town was searched for him in vain--he had gone
on. I had left some sharp men behind me, expecting that he would
endeavour to pass off his bad money immediately after my departure;
but in expectation of this he was now evidently keeping a little in
advance of me. I sent on some men with the shopkeepers whom he had
cheated to our next stage, in the hope of overtaking him; but he had
left the place before they arrived without passing any of his bad
coin, and gone on to Agra. The shopkeepers could not be persuaded to
go any further after him, for, if they caught him, they should, they
said, have infinite trouble in prosecuting him in our courts, without
any chance of recovering from him what they had lost.

On the 29th, we remained at Dholpur to receive and return the visits
of the young Raja, or, as he is called, the young Rana, a lad of
about fifteen years of age, very plain, and very dull. He came about
ten in the forenoon with a very respectable and well-dressed retinue,
and a tolerable show of elephants and horses. The uniforms of his
guards were made after those of our own soldiers, and did not please
me half so much as those of the Datiya guards, who were permitted to
consult their own tastes; and the music of the drums and fifes seemed
to me infinitely inferior to that of the mounted minstrels of my old
friend Parichhit.[9] The lad had with him about a dozen old public
servants entitled to chairs, some of whom had served his father above
thirty years; while the ancestors of others had served his
grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and I could not help telling the
lad in their presence that 'these were the greatest ornament of a
prince's throne and the best signs and pledges of a good government'.
They were all evidently much pleased at the compliment, and I thought
they deserved to be pleased, from the good character they bore among
the peasantry of the country. I mentioned that I had understood the
boatmen of the Chambal at Dholpur never caught or ate fish. The lad
seemed embarrassed, and the minister took upon himself to reply that
'there was no market for it, since the Hindoos of Dholpur never ate
fish, and the Muhammadans had all disappeared'. I asked the lad
whether he was fond of hunting. He seemed again confounded, and the
minister said that 'his highness never either hunted or fished, as
people of his caste were prohibited from destroying life'. 'And yet',
said I, 'they have often showed themselves good