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But, during the disturbances which followed the death of Sher Sháh, they had recovered their independence, and at the accession of Akbar they still held their high place among the states of Rájpútána. Of the other states it may briefly be stated that the rulers of Jaipur had paid homage to the Mughal in the time of Bábar.
If they cannot, then I am for Rajputana, not India India may burn or rot or burst to pieces, so long as Rajputana stands! But " He paused a moment, and looked at each man in turn, and tapped his sabre-hilt, " if a Cunnigan-bahadur were among us a man whom I could trust to lead me and mine and every man I would lend him my sword for the sheer honor of helping him hack truth out of corruption!
Akbar did not conquer in Rájpútána to rule in Rájpútána. He conquered that all the Rájpút princes, each in his own dominions, might enjoy that peace and prosperity which his predominance, never felt aggressively, secured for the whole empire. From the Rájá of Jodhpur, Udai Singh, at the time the most powerful of the Rájpút princes, Akbar obtained the hand of his daughter for his son Salím.
The Maharana of Udaipur, speaking with the authority of his unique position amongst Hindus as the premier Prince of Rajputana, not only condemns an agitation "which is detrimental to all good government and social administration," but declares it to be "a great disgrace to their name as also to their religious beliefs that, in spite of the great prosperity India has enjoyed under the British régime, people are acting in such an ungrateful way."
Now we are free of the plains of Rajputana within a ride of fifty of my blood-relations, and they each within reach of others! Ho! I can hear the thunder of a squadron at my back again! I am young, sahib young! My old joints loosen! Allah send the cloud has burst at last I bring to two thousand Rangars a new Cunnigan-bahadur! Thy father's son shall learn what Cunnigan-bahadur taught!"
I have horses, and spare horses for the journey; and in Rajputana I have horses waiting for thee seven, all told sufficient for a young officer. Six of them are country-bred-sand-weaned a little wild perhaps, but strong, and up to thy weight. A good mare, sahib indeed a mare of mares fit for thy father's son. That mare I give thee. It is little, sahib, but my best; I am a poor man.
And beyond, and again beyond, lay the naked strength and desolation of northern Rajputana white with poppy-fields, velvet-dark with scrub, jagged with outcrops of volcanic rock; the gaunt warrior country, battered by centuries of struggle and slaughter; making calamity a whetstone for courage; saying, in effect, to friend and enemy, 'Take me or leave me. You cannot change me.
From every height and particularly from the Panch Mahal's roof one sees immense prospects and realises what a landmark the stronghold of Fatehpur-Sikri must have been to the dwellers in the plains; but no view is the equal of that which bursts on the astonished eyes at the great north gateway, where all Rajputana is at one's feet.
The strong fortress of Bhartpur, in the east of Rájputána, and near to Agra, had acquired an unique importance, in the eyes of all India by its successful resistance to Lake's assaults during the Maráthá war of 1805.
He had found a yellow-haired, blue-eyed English boy in a walled palace of Rajputana, five hundred miles from any one of his race. The boy was happy, healthy, and well content. That much the Maharajah had pointed out to him; that much he could see for himself. Beyond that the Maharajah had discouraged Dr. Roberts' interest.
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