Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/463

Rh to the temple; desperate combats and sieges, in which the shock of contending armies, the fury of the besieged as they hurl enormous stones from the battlements, and engines of war of every description, are reproduced with striking animation and fidelity. By the side of these scenes of tumult, groups full of grace and expression represent the private life of the period. All the scenes of the palace, the harem, the convent, and the schools, are revealed to us.

Of Hyderabad, the capital of the country ruled by the nizam, M. Rousselet says very little indeed; he remained there a few days only, and appears to have found nothing of interest. Politically, Hyderabad is important; it is a hotbed of Mahomedan fanaticism, liable to break at any time—it broke only very recently—into violence and bloodshed. It is remarkable that the Prince of Wales did not visit Hyderabad, owing, it is generally believed, to untoward circumstances, which have excited much comment, and to which we shall presently refer at greater length (p. 469). The next halt was at Bijapoor, though there is but a brief description of "the marvellous monuments of this city of ruins." The heat of the plains was now becoming very great; it drove M. Rousselet to the hill-sanitarium of Mhableshwar, where he devoted his time to the study of the language, Oordoo, spoken in the countries he was about to visit. Towards the middle of May he was again in movement, on his way to the north of India, via "the country of the Bheels, and Rajpootana." He had now a companion, a young Flemish painter, M. Schaumberg, whose acquaintance he had made at Bombay. They first visited Surat, but arrived there at a most unfortunate time, when 44 a frightful attack of cholera was carrying off hundreds daily." Then came Broach, "the ancient Barygaza mentioned by Arrian and Ptolemy," where is to be seen a most wonderful banyan-tree, "the famous Kabira bar," alleged to have been planted long before the Christian era, and to be the oldest and largest in India, as it may well be, seeing that it covers an area of six hundred and sixty yards in circumference, and is, M. Rousselet says, "in itself, a little virgin forest."

Baroda was the next place visited. Here M. Rousselet remained from June to December 1865. He had brought from Bombay numerous letters of introduction from persons of influence, and these obtained for him an excellent reception, and enabled him to gratify his strong desire to see a purely native court. He and M. Schaumberg were munificently lodged at the guicwar's expense, and were afforded every opportunity of becoming acquainted with native life. His account of the guicwar and of the guicwar's court is especially interesting in connection with the proceedings that have recently brought Baroda so prominently before the British public. We have already, on other occasions, shown that the lately deposed prince ought never to have been placed on the throne, for which he was notoriously quite unfit, and that, the mistake of placing him there having been committed, the best possible measure was his removal, though not as it was effected. It must be borne in mind that M. Rousselet describes not the recently deposed prince, Mulhar Row, but his predecessor and eider brother, Khundee Row, whose "strongly marked features at once gave a perfect idea" to M. Rousselet of the character of the man, who "to excessive kindness in the ordinary intercourse of daily life united the most unheard-of cruelty." M. Rousselet certainly writes in no spirit of hostility to one from whom he received extraordinary kindness and hospitality which he fully acknowledges; yet, in describing the guicwar's "daily life," he shows that to cruelty were added ruinous eccentricities for which his people had to pay, and that, altogether, Khundee Row Guicwar was little, if at all, better than his successor.

Just after M. Rousselet's arrival the guicwar determined that a celebrated diamond, "the Star of the South," recently purchased, should "have the honour of a triumphal entry into his capital, and should be solemnly conveyed to the temple, there to be blessed by the priests." This was done with pomp and ceremony so extraordinary that one might, says M. Rousselet, "have fancied one's self in the Middle Ages."

At one time the guicwar took to collecting bulbuls, and had more than five hundred brought to the palace, where, during a whole month, their care and education employed him and his nobles. After this the birds were made to fight "a pitched battle," in which "the beautiful little creatures attacked each other furiously, and were killed in great numbers."

Again, a fancy was taken to being surrounded with holy men, who were summoned from all quarters. The guicwar was then "pleased to entertain, these fellows after a royal fashion, clothing them in precious stuffs, and paying them marks