city a still larger and handsomer palace standing, I asked our conductors, the Raja’s servants, why it was unoccupied.  ‘No prince these degenerate days’, said they, ’could muster a family and court worthy of such a palace—­ the family and court of the largest of them would, within the walls of such a building, feel as if they were in a desert.  Such palaces were made for princes of the older times, who were quite different beings from those of the present day.’

From the deserted palace we went to the new garden which is preparing for the young Raja, an adopted son of about ten years of age.  It is close to the southern wall of the city, and is very extensive and well managed.  The orange-trees are all grafted, and sinking under the weight of as fine fruit as any in India.  Attempting to ascend the steps of an empty bungalow upon a raised terrace at the southern extremity of the garden, the attendants told us respectfully that they hoped we would take off our shoes if we wished to enter, as the ancestor of the Raja by whom it was built, Ram Chand, had lately become a god, and was there worshipped.  The roof is of stone, supported on carved stone pillars.  On the centre pillar, upon a ground of whitewash, is a hand or trident.  This is the only sign of a sacred character the building has yet assumed; and I found that it owed this character of sanctity to the circumstance of some one having vowed an offering to the manes of the builder, if he obtained what his soul most desired; and, having obtained it, all the people believe that those who do the same at the same place in a pure spirit of faith will obtain what they pray for.

I made some inquiries about Hardaul Lala, the son of Birsingh Deo, who built the fort of Dhamoni, one of the ancestors of the Datiya Raja, and found that he was as much worshipped here at his birthplace as upon the banks of the Nerbudda as the supposed great originator of the cholera morbus.  There is at Datiya a temple dedicated to him and much frequented; and one of the priests brought me a flower in his name, and chanted something indicating that Hardaul Lala was now worshipped even so far as the British capital of Calcutta, I asked the old prince what he thought of the origin of the worship of this his ancestor; and he told me that when the cholera broke out first in the camp of Lord Hastings, then pitched about three stages from his capital, on the bank of the Sindh at Chandpur Sunari, several people recovered from the disease immediately after making votive offerings in his name; and that he really thought the spirit of his great-grandfather had worked some wonderful cures upon people afflicted with this dreadful malady.[9]