One day, in October 1833, the horse of the district surgeon, Doctor Spry, as he was mounting him, reared, fell back with his head upon a stone, and died upon the spot.  The doctor was not much hurt, and the little Sarimant called a few days after, and offered his congratulations upon his narrow escape.  The cause of so quiet a horse rearing at this time, when he had never been known to do so before, was discussed; and he said that there could be no doubt that the horse, or the doctor himself, must have seen some unlucky face before he mounted that morning—­that he had been in many places in his life, but in none where a man was liable to see so many ugly or unfortunate faces; and, for his part, he never left his house till an hour after sunrise, lest he should encounter them.[8]

Many natives were present, and every one seemed to consider the Sarimant’s explanation of the cause quite satisfactory and philosophical.  Some days after, Spry was going down to sleep in the bungalow where the accident happened.  His native assistant and all his servants came and prayed that he would not attempt to sleep in the bungalow, as they were sure the horse must have been frightened by a ghost, and quoted several instances of ghosts appearing to people there.  He, however, slept in the bungalow, and, to their great astonishment, saw no ghost and suffered no evil.[9]

Notes: 

1.  A fortress, twenty-five miles cast of Sagar, captured by a British force under General Watson in October 1818, For Seori and Raja Arjun Singh see ante, Chapter 17, text by notes 1 and 4.

2.  Amir Khan, a leader of predatory horse, has been justly described as ‘one of the most atrocious villains that India ever produced’.  He first came into notice in 1804, as an officer in Holkar’s service, and in the following year opposed Lord Lake at Bharatpur.  A treaty made with him in 1817 put an end to his activity.  The Pindharis were organized bands of mounted robbers, who desolated Northern and Central India during the period of anarchy which followed the dissolution of the Moghal empire.  They were associated with the Marathas in the war which terminated with the capture of Asirgarh in April 1819.  In the same year the Pindhari forces ceased to exist as a distinct and recognized, body.

    My father was an Afghan, and came from Kandahar: 
    He rode with Nawab Amir Khan in the old Maratha war: 
    From the Dekhan to the Himalay, five hundred of one clan,
    They asked no leave of prince or chief as they swept thro’
Hindusthan.

(Sir A. Lyall, ‘The Old Pindaree’; in Verses written in India, London, 1889).

3.  Named Govind Rao.  The proper name of the Sarimant was Ramchand Rao (C.P.  Gazetteer, 1870).

4.  Kurmin is the feminine of Kurmi, the name of a widely spread and most industrious agricultural caste, closely connected, at least in Bundelkhand, with the similar Lodhi caste.