Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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The misrule of such states, situated in the midst of our dominions,
is not without its use. There is, as Gibbon justly observes, 'a
strong propensity in human nature to depreciate the advantages, and
to magnify the evils, of the present times'; and, if the people had
not before their eyes such specimens of native rule to contrast with
ours, they would think more highly than they do of that of their past
Muhammadan and Hindoo sovereigns; and be much less disposed than they
are to estimate fairly the advantages of being under ours. The native
governments of the present day are fair specimens of what they have
always been--grinding military despotisms--their whole history is
that of 'Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of
thousands'; as if rulers were made merely to slay, and the ruled to
be slain. In politics, as in landscape, ''Tis distance lends
enchantment to the view', and the past might be all _couleur de rose_
in the imaginations of the people were it not represented in these
ill-governed states, where the 'lucky accident' of a good governor is
not to be expected in a century, and where the secret of the
responsibility of ministers to the people is yet undiscovered.[11]

The fortress of Gwalior stands upon a tableland, a mile and a half
long by a quarter of a mile wide, at the north-east end of a small
insulated sandstone hill, running north-east and south-west, and
rising at both ends about three hundred and forty feet above the
level of the plain below. At the base is a kind of glacis, which runs
up at an angle of forty-five from the plain to within fifty, and, in
some places, within twenty feet of the foot of the wall.

The interval is the perpendicular face of the horizontal strata of
the sandstone rock. The glacis is formed of a bed of basalt in all
stages of decomposition, with which this, like the other sandstone
hills of Central India, was once covered, and of the debris and
chippings of the rocks above. The walls are raised a certain uniform
height all round upon the verge of the precipice, and being thus made
to correspond with the edge of the rock, the line is extremely
irregular. They are rudely built of the fine sandstone of the rock on
which they stand, and have some square and some semicircular bastions
of different sizes, few of these raised above the level of the wall
itself.[12] On the eastern face of the rock, between the glacis and
foot of the wall, are cut out, in bold relief, the colossal figures
of men sitting bareheaded under canopies, on each side of a throne or
temple; and, in another place, the colossal figure of a man standing
naked, and facing outward, which I took to be that of Buddha.[l3]

The town of Gwalior extends along the foot of the hill on one side,
and consists of a single street above a mile long. There is a very
beautiful mosque, with one end built by a Muhammad Khan, A.D. 1665,
of the white sandstone of the rock above it. It looks as fresh as if
it had not been finished a month; and struck, as I passed it, with so
noble a work, apparently new, and under such a government, I alighted
from my horse, went in, and read the inscription, which told me the
date of the building and the name of the founder. There is no stucco-
work over any part of it, nor is any required on such beautiful
materials; and the stones are all so nicely cut that cement seems to
have been considered useless. It has the usual two minarets or
towers, and over the arches and alcoves are carved, as customary,
passages from the Koran, in the beautiful Kufic characters.[14] The
court and camp of the chief extends out from the southern end of the
hill for several miles.

The whole of the hill on which the fort of Gwalior stands had
evidently, at no very distant period, been covered by a mass of
basalt, surmounted by a crust of indurated brown and red iron clay,
with lithomarge, which often assumes the appearance of common
laterite. The boulders of basalt, which still cap some part of the
hill, and form the greater part of the glacis at the bottom, are for
the most part in a state of rapid decomposition; but some of them are
still so hard and fresh that the hammer rings upon them as upon a
bell, and their fracture is brilliantly crystalline. The basalt is
the same as that which caps the sandstone hills of the Vindhya range
throughout Malwa. The sandstone hills around Gwalior all rise in the
same abrupt manner from the plain as those through Malwa generally;
and they have almost all of them the same basaltic glacis at their
base, with boulders of that rock scattered over the top, all
indicating that they were at one time buried, in the same manner
under one great mass of volcanic matter, thrown out from their
submarine craters in streams of lava, or diffused through the ocean
or lakes in ashes, and deposited in strata. The geological character
of the country about Gwalior is very similar to that of the country
about Sagar; and I may say the same of the Vindhya range generally,
as far as I have seen it, from Mirzapore on the Ganges to Bhopal in
Malwa--hills of sandstone rising suddenly from alluvial plain, and
capped, or bearing signs of having been capped, by basalt reposing
immediately upon it, and partly covered in its turn by beds of
indurated iron clay.[15]

The fortress of Gwalior was celebrated for its strength under the
Hindoo sovereigns of India; but was taken by the Muhammadans after a
long siege, A.D. 1197.[16] the Hindoos regained possession, but were
again expelled by the Emperor Iltutmish, A. D. 1235.[17] the Hindoos
again got possession, and after holding it one hundred years, again
surrendered it to the forces of the Emperor Ibrahim, A.D. 1519.[18]
In 1543 it was surrendered up by the troops of the Emperor
Humayun[19] to Sher Khan, his successful competitor for the
empire.[20] It afterwards fell into the hands of a Jat chief, the
Rana of Gohad,[21] from whom it was taken by the Marathas. While in
their possession, it was invested by our troops under the command of
Major Popham; and, on the 3rd of August, 1780, taken by escalade.[22]
The party that scaled the wall was gallantly led by a very
distinguished and most promising officer, Captain Bruce, brother of
the celebrated traveller.[23]

It was made over to us by the Rana of Gohad, who had been our ally in
the war. Failing in his engagement to us, he was afterwards abandoned
to the resentment of Madhoji Sindhia, chief of the Marathas.[24] In
1783, Gwalior was invested by Madhoji Sindhia's troops, under the
command of one of the most extraordinary men that have ever figured
in Indian history, the justly celebrated General De Boigne.[25] After
many unsuccessful attempts to take it by escalade, he bought over
part of the garrison, and made himself master of the place. Gohad
itself was taken soon after in 1784; but the Rana, Chhatarpat, made
his escape. He was closely pursued, made prisoner at Karauli, and
confined in the fortress of Gwalior, where he died in the year
1785.[26] He left no son, and his claims upon Gohad devolved upon his
nephew, Kirat Singh, who, at the close of our war with the Marathas,
got from Lord Lake, in lieu of these claims, the estate of Dholpur,
situated on the left banks of the river Chambal, which is estimated
at the annual value of three hundred thousand, or three lakhs, of
rupees. He died this year, 1835, and has been succeeded by his son,
Bhagwant Singh, a lad of seventeen years of age.[27]

Notes:

1. December, 1835.

2. Throughout the northern edge of the trap country in Rajputana,
Gwalior, and Bundelkhand, dykes are rare or wanting.' (W. T.
Blandford, in _Manual of the Geology of India_, 1st ed., Part 1, p.
328.) The dykes mentioned in the text may not have been visited by
the officers of the Geological Surrey.

3. 'Basalt generally disintegrates into a reddish soil, quite
different from _regar_ in character. This reddish soil may be seen
passing into _regar_, but, as a rule, the black soil is confined to
the flatter ground at the bottom of the valleys, or on flat hill-
tops, the brown or red soils occupying the slopes' (ibid. p. 433).

4. Johnson, in his _Journey to the Western Islands_, observes: 'Now
and then we espied a little corn-field, which served to impress more
strongly the general barrenness.' [W. H. S.] The remark referred to
the shores of Loch Ness (p. 237 of volume viii of Johnson's Works,
London, 1820).

5. By this awkward phrase the author seems to mean Lucknow, on the
east, the capital of the kingdom of Oudh, and Udaipur, to the west,
the capital of the long-descended chieftain of Mewar. Alternatively,
the author may possibly have referred to Agra and Gwalior, rather
than Lucknow and Udaipur.

6. 'The new city at Gwalior below the fortress is, like the city of
Jhansi, known as the 'Lashkar', or camp. The old city of Gwalior
encircles the north end of the fortress. The new city, or Lashkar,
lies to the south, more than a mile distant. In January, 1859, the
population of the two cities together amounted to 142,044 persons
(_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 331).

7. Only those readers who have lived in India can fully understand
the reasons why the pigs should frequent such a place, and how great
would be the horrors of encamping in it.

8. In the description of the author's encampment at Gwalior, he fell
into a mistake, which he discovered too late for correction in his
journal. His tents were not pitched within the Phul Bagh, as he
supposed, but without; and seeing nothing of this place, he imagined
that the dirty and naked ground outside was actually the flower-
garden. The Phul Bagh, however, is a very pleasing and well-ordered
garden, although so completely secluded from observation by lofty
walls that many other travellers must have encamped on the same spot
without being aware of its existence. (_Publishers' note at end of
volume ii of original edition_. )

9. Bhilsa is the principal town of the Isagarh subdivision in the
Gwalior State. The famous Buddhist antiquities near it are described
at length in Cunningham, _The Bhilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monuments of
Central India_ (1854), and in Maisey, _Sanchi and its Remains. A full
Description of the Ancient Buildings, Sculptures, and Inscriptions at
Sanchi, near Bhilsa, in Central India_. With an Introductory Note by
Major-General Sir Alexander Cunningham, K.C.I.E. (1892). It is
surprising that so keen an observer as the author appears not to have
noticed any of the great Buddhist buildings of Central India.

10. The government of Gwalior has improved since the author wrote.
Many reforms have been begun and more or less fully executed. In May,
1887, the vast hoard of rupees buried in pits in the fort, valued at
five millions sterling, was exhumed, and lent to the Government of
India to be usefully employed. The passive opposition of a court like
that of Gwalior to the effectual execution of reforms is continuous
and difficult to overcome.

11. The author's description of the ordinary Asiatic government at
almost all times and in all places as 'a grinding military despotism'
is correct. Sentimental persons in both India and England are apt to
forget this weighty truth. The golden age of India, excepting,
perhaps, the Gupta period between A.D. 330 and 455, is as mythical as
that of Ireland. What Persia now is, that would India be, if she had
been left to her own devices.

12. Sir A. Cunningham was stationed at Gwalior for five years, and
had thus an exceptionally accurate knowledge of the fortress. His
account, which corrects the text in some particulars, is as follows:-
'the great fortress of Gwalior is situated on a precipitous, flat-
topped, and isolated hill of sandstone, which rises 300 feet above
the town at the north end, but only 274 feet at the upper gate of the
principal entrance. The hill is long and narrow; its extreme length
from north to south being one mile and three-quarters, while its
breadth varies from 600 feet opposite the main entrance to 2,800 feet
in the middle opposite the great temple. The walls are from 30 to 35
feet in height, and the rock immediately below them is steeply, but
irregularly, scarped all round the hill. The long line of battlements
which crowns the steep scarp on the east is broken only by the lofty
towers and fretted domes of the noble palace of Raja Man Singh. On
the opposite side, the line of battlements is relieved by the deep
recess of the Urwahi valley, and by the zigzag and serrated parapets
and loopholed bastions which flank the numerous gates of the two
western entrances. At the northern end, where the rock has been
quarried for ages, the jagged masses of the overhanging cliff seem
ready to fall upon the city beneath them. To the south the hill is
less lofty, but the rock has been steeply scarped, and is generally
quite inaccessible. Midway over all towers the giant form of a
massive Hindu temple, grey with the moss of ages. Altogether, the
fort of Gwalior forms one of the most picturesque views in Northern
India' (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 330).

13. The nakedness of the image in itself proves that Buddha could not
be the person represented. His statues are never nude. The Gwalior
figures are images of some of the twenty-four great saints
(Tirthankaras or Jinas) of the Digambara sect of the Jain religion.
Jain statues are frequently of colossal size. The largest of those at
Gwalior is fifty-seven feet high. The Gwalior sculptures are of late
date--the middle of the fifteenth century. The antiquities of
Gwalior, including these sculptures, are well described in _A.S.R._,
vol. ii, pp. 330-95, plates lxxxvi to xci.

14. This mosque is the Jami', or cathedral, mosque 'situated at the
eastern foot of the fortress, near the Alamgiri Darwaza (gate). It is
a neat and favourable specimen of the later Moghal architecture. Its
beauty, however, is partly due to the fine light-coloured sandstone
of which it is built. This at once attracted the notice of Sir Wm.
Sleeman, who, &c.' (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 370). This mosque is in the
old city, described as 'a crowded mass of small flat-roofed stone
houses' (ibid. p. 330).

15. The Geological Survey recognizes a special group of 'transition'
rocks between the metamorphic and the Vindhyan series under the name
of the Gwalior area. 'The Gwalior area is . . . only fifty miles long
from east to west, and about fifteen miles wide. It takes its name
from the city of Gwalior, which stands upon it, surrounding the
famous fort built upon a scarped outlier of Vindhyan sandstone, which
rests upon a base of massive bedded trap belonging to the transition
period' (_Manual of Geology of India_, 1st ed., Part l, p. 56). The
writers of the manual do not notice the basaltic cap of the fort hill
described by the author, and at p. 300 use language which implies
that the hill is outside the limits of the Deccan trap. But the
author's observations seem sufficiently precise to warrant the
conclusion that he was right in believing the basaltic cap of the
Gwalior hill to be an outlying fragment of the vast Deccan trap
sheet. The relation between laterite and lithomarge is discussed in
p. 353 of the _Manual_, and the occurrence of laterite caps on the
highest ground of the country, at two places-near Gwalior, 'outside
of the trap area', is noticed (ibid. p. 356). These two places are at
Raipur hill, and on the Kaimur sandstone, about two miles to the
north-west. No doubt these two hills are outliers of the Central
India spread of laterite, which has been traced as far as Sipri,
about sixty miles south of the Raipur hill (Hacket, _Geology of
Gwalior and Vicinity_, in _Records of Geol. Survey of India_, vol.
iii, p. 41). The geology of Gwalior is also discussed in Mallet's
paper entitled 'Sketch of the Geology of Scindia's Territories'
(_Records_, vol. viii, p. 55). Neither writer refers to the basaltic
cap of Gwalior fort hill. For the refutation of the author's theory
of the subaqueous origin of the Deccan trap see notes Chapters 14,
note 13, and Chapter 17, note 3 _ante_.

16. In the reign of Muizz-ud-din, Muhammad bin Sam, also known by the
names of Shibab-ud-din, and Muhammad Ghori. He struck billon coins at
the Gwalior mint. the correct date is A.D. 1196. The Hijri year 592
began on the 6th Dec., A.D. 1195.

17. Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, 'the greatest of the Slave Kings',
reigned from A.D. 1210 to 1235 (A.H. 607-633). He besieged Gwalior in
A.H. 629 and after eleven months' resistance captured the place in
the month Safar, A.H. 630, equivalent to Nov.-Dec. A.D. 1232. The
date given in the text is wrong. The correct name of this king is
Iltutmish (_Z.D.M.G._, vol. lxi (1907), pp. 192, 193). It is written
Altumash by the author, and Altamsh by Thomas and Cunningham. A
summary of the events of his reign, based on coins and other original
documents, is given on page 45 of Thomas, _Chronicles of the Pathan
Kings of Delhi_. Iltutmish recorded an inscription dated A.H. 630 at
Gwalior (ibid. p. 80). This inscription was seen by Babur, but has
since disappeared.

18. Ibrahim Lodi, A.D. 1517-26. He was defeated and killed by Babur
at the first battle of Panipat, A.D. 1526. the correct date of his
capture of Gwalior, according to Cunningham (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p.
340), is 1518.

19. Humayun was son of Babur, and father of Akbar the Great. His
first reign lasted from A.D. 1530 to 1540; his second brief reign of
less than six months was terminated by an accident in January A.D.
1556. The correct date of the surrender of Gwalior to Sher Shah was
A.D. 1542, corresponding to A.H. 949 (_A. S .R._, vol. ii, p. 393),
which year began 17th April, 1542.

20. Sher Khan is generally known as Sher (or Shir) Shah. A good
summary of his career from A.D. 1528 to his death in A.D. 1545 (A.H.
934 to 952) is given by Thomas (op. cit. p. 393). He struck coins at
Gwalior in A.H. 950, 951, 952 (ibid. p. 403).

21. Gohad lies between Etawah (Itawa) and Gwalior, twenty-eight miles
north-east of the latter. The chief, originally an obscure Jat
landholder, rose to power during the confusion of the eighteenth
century, and allied himself with the British in 1789 (Thornton,
_Gazetteer_, s.v. 'Gohad').

22. This memorable exploit was performed during Warren Hastings's war
with the Marathas, Sir Eyre Coote being Commander-in-Chief. Captain
Popham first stormed the fort of Lahar, a stronghold west of Kalpi
(Calpee), and then, by a cleverly arranged escalade, captured 'with
little trouble and small loss' the Gwalior fortress, which was
garrisoned by a thousand men, and commonly supposed to be
impregnable. 'Captain Popham was rewarded for his gallant services by
being promoted to the rank of Major' (Thornton, _The History of the
British Empire in India_, 2nd ed., 1859, p. 149). 'It is said that
the spot (for escalade) was pointed out to Popham by a cowherd, and
that the whole of the attacking party were supplied with grass shoes
to prevent them from slipping on the ledges of rock. There is a story
also that the cost of these grass shoes was deducted from Popham's
pay when he was about to leave India as a Major-General, nearly a
quarter of a century afterwards' (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 340).

23. James Bruce, 'the celebrated traveller', was Consul at Algiers.
He explored Tripoli, Tunis, Syria, and Egypt, and travelled in
Abyssinia from November 1769 to December 1771. He returned to Egypt
by the Nile, arriving at Cairo in January 1773. His travels were
published in 1790. He died in 1794.

24. The Sindhia family of Gwalior was founded by Ranoji Sindhia, a
man of humble origin, in the service of the Peshwa. Ranoji died about
A.D. 1750, and was succeeded by one of his natural sons, Mahadaji
(corruptly Mahdaju, &c.) Sindhia, whose turbulent and chequered
career lasted till 1794, when he was succeeded by his grand-nephew,
Daulat Rao. The Maratha power under Daulat Rao was broken in 1803, by
Sir Arthur Wellesley at Assaye and Argaum, and by Lord Lake at
Laswari. Mahadaji's career is treated fully by Grant Duff, _A History
of the Mahrattas_ (1826 and reprint). Mr. H. G. Keene in his little
book (_Rulers of India_, Oxford, 1892) erroneously gives the chiefs
name as 'Madhava Rao'. The anthor's 'Madhoji' also is wrong.

25. It is impossible within the limits of a note to give an account
of the extraordinary career of General De Boigne. His Indian
adventures began in 1778, and terminated in September 1796, when he
retired from Sindhia's service, and sold his private regiment of
Persian cavalry, six hundred strong, to Lord Cornwallis, on behalf of
the East India Company, for three lakhs of rupees (about L30,000). He
settled in his native town, Chamberi in Savoy, and lived, in the
enjoyment of his great wealth, and of high honours conferred by the
sovereigns of France and Italy, until 21st June, 1830. He was created
a Count, and was succeeded in the title by his son. See G. M.
Raymond, _Memoire sur la Carriere Militaire et Politique de M. le
General Comte de Boigne, 2ieme_ ed., Chambery, 1830. Nine chapters of
Mr. Herbert Compton's book, _A Particular Account of European
Military Adventurers of Hindustan_ (London, 1892), are devoted to De
Boigne.

26. The cession of Gohad to Sindhia, sanctioned in the year 1805,
during the brief and inglorious second term of office of Lord
Cornwallis, was effected by Sir George Barlow. The transaction is
severely censured by Thornton (_History_, p. 343) as a breach of
faith. Gwalior was given up to Sindhia along with Gohad. In January
1844, shortly after the battle of Maharajpur, Gwalior was again
occupied by the forces of the Company, and the fortress (save for the
Mutiny period) continued in British occupation until the 2nd December
1885, when Lord Dufferin restored it to Sindhia in exchange for
Jhansi. In June 1857 the Gwalior soldiery mutinied and massacred the
Europeans, but the Maharaja remained throughout loyal to the English
Government.

Sir Hugh Rose recaptured the place by assault on the 28th June 1858.
In the changed circumstances of the country, and with regard to the
modern developments of the art of war, the Gwalior fortress is now of
slight military value.

27. The territory of the Dholpur chief is about fifty-four miles long
by twenty-three broad. The town of Dholpur is nearly midway between
Agra and Gwalior. The revenue is estimated by Thornton (1858) as
seven lakhs, not only three lakhs as stated by the author. It was
about eight lakhs in 1904 (_I.G._, 1908).

CHAPTER 37

Content for Empire between the Sons of Shah Jahan.

Under the Emperors of Delhi the fortress of Gwalior was always
considered as an imperial State prison, in which they confined those
rivals and competitors for dominion whom they did not like to put to
a violent death. They kept a large menagerie, and other things, for
their amusement. Among the best of the princes who ended their days
in this great prison was Sulaiman Shikoh, the eldest son of the
unhappy Dara.[1] A narrative of the contest for empire between the
four sons of Shah Jahan may, perhaps, prove both interesting and
instructive; and, as I shall have occasion, in the course of my
rambles, to refer to the characters who figured in it, I shall
venture to give it a place. . . .[2]

Notes:

1. 'The prisons of Gwalior are situated in a small outwork on the
western side of the fortress, immediately above the Dhondha gateway.
They are called "nau chauki", or "the nine cells", and are both well
lighted and well ventilated. But in spite of their height, from
fifteen to twenty-six feet, they must be insufferably close in the
hot season. These were the State prisons in which Akbar confined his
rebellious cousins, and Aurangzeb the troublesome sons of Dara and
Murad, as well as his own more dangerous son Muhammad. During these
times the fort was strictly guarded, and no one was allowed to enter
without a pass' (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 369), Sulaiman Shikoh, whom
Manucci credits with 'all the gifts of nature', was poisoned at
Gwalior early in the reign of Aurangzeb, by order of that monarch,
paternal uncle of the victim (Irvine, _Storia do Mogor_, i. 380). The
author, following Bernier, always calls Shahjahan's eldest son simply
Dara. His name really was Dara Shikoh (or Shukoh), meaning 'in
splendour like Darius'.

2. The following twelve chapters contain an historical piece, to the
personages and events of which the author will have frequent occasion
to refer; and it is introduced in this place from its connexion with
Gwalior, the State prison in which some of its actors ended their
days. [W. H. S.]

The 'historical piece' which occupies chapters 37 to 46, inclusive of
the author's text is little more than a paraphrase of _The History of
the Late Rebellion in the States of the Great Mogol_ by Bernier, as
the disquisition is called in Brock's translation. Mr. A. Constable's
revised and annotated translation of Bernier's work (Constable and
Co., 1891; reprinted with corrections. Oxford University Press, 1914)
renders superfluous the reprinting of Sleeman's paraphrase, which
would require much correction and comment before it could be
presented to readers of the present day. The main facts of the
narrative are, moreover, now easily accessible in the histories of
Elphinstone and innumerable other writers. Such explanations as may
be required to elucidate allusions to the excised portion in the
later chapters of the anthor's work will be found in the notes. The
titles of the chapters which have not been reprinted follow here for
facility of reference.