Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/214

210 Joseph, the fairest of men. Chitaldrúg was changed to Farukh-yáb Hisár, or the 'propitiously-acquired castle;' Gútti to Fáiz Hisár, or the 'citadel of grace,' and so forth; but, as may be supposed, all these places have relapsed into their old names. Measures of distance too were amended, the kos or Indian two-miles being now defined as consisting of so many yards of twice twenty-four thumb-breadths, because the creed (Kalmah) contains twenty-four letters. The kos thus fixed was 2¾ miles, and if the letter-carriers did not travel this distance in 33¾ minutes they were to be flogged. All the names of weights and measures were altered. But the most wonderful of his improvements was his new method of calculating time. As is well known, the Hindus counted time in cycles of 60 years, each year having a separate name, a system which makes their chronology somewhat difficult to unravel. Tipú founded a new calendar on this basis, giving however fantastic names to the years, and equally strange ones to the lunar months. The year, according to his arrangement, only contained 354 days, and each month was called by some name in alphabetical order. From the year 1784, all his letters were dated according to the day of one or other of the months in this new nomenclature.

It may be remarked that his pen was most prolific, and that he condescended to write to his officials, both civil and military, detailed instructions on every conceivable matter, whether the question before him related to military operations, general regulations,