Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/198

190 the principal wife beside the sofa on which Sindhia was lying, two women were holding a screen before her face. Soon after Sindhia was carried in his state palanquin dressed in his most splendid dress with all the emblems of state to the funeral pile, but nothing was said of the Baiza Bái, his widow, burning herself, which was a great relief to Lord Amherst.'

So passed away from the stage of native history one who had played for thirty-three years at first a leading and always an interesting part in events. During the first decade of his reign Daulat Ráo Sindhia was master of Hindustán. The Emperor of Delhi was in everything but form his vassal and his prisoner. The Rájput princes paid him tribute, and the Peshwa was in effect his subordinate. The Upper Doáb and nearly the whole of Bundelkhand and Málwá were his. The army by which he maintained his supremacy was of great strength, admirably drilled and well equipped. He had the good sense to avail himself of the services of European captains, whose careers furnished some of the more romantic chapters in Indian history. But his strength was his betrayal. Twice he challenged an encounter with the British arms, and as the result he was left not powerless indeed, but shorn of much of his early might and dignity. He accepted his reverses discreetly, and died with no greater anxieties on his mind than that of leaving his power to his wife Baiza Bái, of whom Lady Amherst has had so much to say. Fearing to prejudice her position, he had refrained during his