Page:Imperial India — An Artist's Journals.djvu/97

Rh took us five hours to reach it, and we found a hearty welcome in Major Dennehy, the political agent, and his family, whose hospitality is proverbial through this part of India.

The Rana is a small boy of thirteen, who speaks English as well as an English boy, and runs about the Dennehys' house as if he were one of their children. He is not pretty, having a very retreating chin and rather projecting teeth, but he is very intelligent, with a great feeling for humour. Altogether, he is a very attractive boy, and we got on splendidly together.

Of Dholepore I have very little to say, as the town is poor and squalid, with no good buildings. There is a good tomb of one of Akbar's generals, Sadik Mohammed Khan; and a curious tank, supplied by a spring, which is said to have sprung up at the bidding of Krishna; it is consequently surrounded with temples, and is considered a very holy place.

The little Rana tried to give us some cheetah hunting, but it would not come off, as, when we found deer (and they were scarce enough), we could not get the cheetah, and of course vice versâ.

The Dennehys live in truly patriarchal style. Their home at present is the place which, when the Rana grows up and comes to his own, will be used as a durbar house. The house, therefore, is really one large room. In this room are found during the day all kinds of sirdars and officers waiting for an audience, and among all romps the little Rana.

Three years ago, when we undertook the management of Dholepore, he was a sickly lad, who required three men to hold him on horseback: now he is strong and healthy, rides to hounds which he hunts himself, plays polo, and is up to any fun. His mother, the ruling Ranee, is a sister of the late Rajah of Puttiala. At first she objected to the English education for her son, but being a reasonable woman (fancy that!), she has quite given in; and, except when eating and sleeping, the boy is always at the Dennehys'. The difficulty is to get him to go home at all. If he had been left to his mother and Indian ways, he would have been married, and quite ruined in health and mind; so in some things we English have done some good.