Outside the Kumbhir gate, I saw, for the first time in my life, the
well peculiar to Upper India. It is built up in the form of a round
tower or cylindrical shell of burnt bricks, well cemented with good
mortar, and covered inside and out with good stucco work, and let
down by degrees, as the earth is removed by men at work in digging
under the light earthy or sandy foundation inside and out. This well
is about twenty feet below and twenty feet above the surface, and had
to be built higher as it was let into the ground.[6]
On the 11th we came on twelve miles to Dig (Deeg), over a plain of
poor and badly cultivated soil, which must be almost all under water
in the rains. This was, and still is, the country seat of the Jats of
Bharatpur, who rose, as I have already stated, to wealth and power by
aggressions upon their immediate neighbours, and the plunder of
tribute on its way to the imperial capital, and of the baggage of
passing armies during the contests for dominion that followed the
death of the Emperors, and during the decline and fall of the empire.
The Jats found the morasses with which they were surrounded here a
source of strength.
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