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"Oodeypore is the capital of a Rajputana state; and its palace is said to be the largest and most magnificent in India, though the town has a population of less than forty thousand. The maharajah entertained the Prince of Wales in it when he made his progress through the country. It is built in the mountains, and it would be a troublesome journey for us to reach it.
Its Rájá, Maldeo Singh, had given to the great Sher Sháh more trouble in the field than had any of his opponents. He had, however, refused an asylum to Humáyún when Humáyún was a fugitive. He was alive, independent, and the most powerful of all the princes of Rájpútána when Akbar ascended the throne of Delhi. Jaisalmer, Bíkáner, and the states on the borders of the desert were also independent.
And he will never, all his life, tell her what happened during the seven weeks of his shooting-tour in Rajputana.
It is necessary to say something regarding two men so illustrious and so influential. They were the sons of a Shaikh of Arab descent, Shaikh Mubárak, whose ancestors settled at Nagar, in Rájpútána.
Sir David Ochterlony, the hero of the Nepálese war, then resident in Málwá and Rájputána, undertook to support the legitimate heir, but was overruled by orders from Amherst. On his resignation he was succeeded by Metcalfe, who had become Sir Charles Metcalfe by his brother's death in 1822, and who now obtained authority to carry out Ochterlony's policy, if necessary, by armed intervention.
Late in the evening we changed at Baroda, and dawn next morning saw us speeding across the swamps and inlets, which gave place ere long to the palm groves and clustering houses which marked the farther limits of the suburbs of Bombay. We found the heat damp and oppressive very trying after the drier air of Rajputana, and the Taj Mahal Hotel below our expectations in all respects save price.
Nearly all of the capitals of the provinces of Rajputana have similar treasures, the accumulations of centuries, and it seems like criminal negligence to keep such enormous sums of money tied up in jewels and useless ornaments when they might be expended or invested to the great advantage of the people in public works and manufactories.
There were men who would like to weld Rajputana into one again, and over-ride the rest of India; and there were other men who planned to do the same for the Punjaub; there were plots within plots, not many of which he learned in anything like detail, but none of which were more than skin-deep below the surface.
Persecution and still more the steady pressure and absorptive power of Hinduism have reduced the proportions of the sect, and the last census estimated it at one million and a third. It is probable, however, that many Jains returned themselves as Hindus, and that their numbers are really greater. More than two-fifths of them are found in Bombay, Rajputana, and Central India.
These five temples, with their courtyards and cloisters, are said to have cost $90,000,000 and to have occupied fourteen years in building, from 1032 to 1046 A. D. Mount Abu is the headquarters of the Rajputana administration, the hot weather station for the British troops, and the favorite summer resort of the European colonies of western India.
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