[11] There are some very
beautiful temples in the city, all built by Gosains, one [_sic_] of
the priests of Siva who here engage in trade, and accumulate much
wealth.[12] The family of the chief do not build tombs; and that now
raised over the place where the late prince was buried is dedicated
as a temple to Siva, and was made merely with a view to secure the
place from all danger of profanation.[13]
The face of the country beyond the influence of the tanks is neither
rich nor interesting. The cultivation seemed scanty and the
population thin, owing to the irremediable sterility of soil, from
the poverty of the primitive rock from whose detritus it is chiefly
formed. Raghunath Rao told me that the wish of the people in the
castle to adopt a child as the successor to his nephew arose from the
desire to escape the scrutiny into the past accounts of disbursements
which he might be likely to order. I told him that I had myself no
doubt that he would be declared the Raja, and urged him to turn all
his thoughts to the future, and to allow no inquiries to be made into
the past, with a view to gratify either his own resentment, or that
of others; that the Rajas of Jhansi had hitherto been served by the
most respectable, able, and honourable men in the country, while the
other chiefs of Bundelkhand could get no man of this class to do
their work for them--that this was the only court in Bundelkhand in
which such men could be seen, simply because it was the only one in
which they could feel themselves secure--while other chiefs
confiscated the property of ministers who had served them with
fidelity, on the pretence of embezzlement; the wealth thus acquired,
however, soon disappearing, and its possessors being obliged either
to conceal it or go out of the country to enjoy it.
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