IMPRESSIONS OF AN OFFICER OF GERMAN GENERAL STAFF OF HIS TRAVELS IN INDIA 110 YEARS AGO (8)

Baroda belongs to the great federation of states of the Rajputana princes,beautiful,hospitable Rajputana,land of rajahs,maharajahs,maharanas,the sovereign chiefs,little and great kings- poor in territory,rich in deeds,famous in the story of the Peninsula.

At the present juncture,Rajputana or rajasthan is made up of 25 independent states,so called.The princes of Mewar,Gwalior,Jeypore and Jodpure are accounted its principal and most influential rulers nowadays.

In Baroda ,too,English intervention appeared in the guise of welcome relief.When in the year 1802, the then Gaikwar, Anandrao,was taken captive by his Arabian mercenaries,who had made themselves masters of the capital,and was kept prisoner in his own palace,the Government of Bombay released him from his durance.

I was on an invitation from Capt Ducate the acting Resident.

Mrs Ducate a graceful lady finds time to set her house in the best of order,to see to the daily exercising of her beloved Lucky,to give the parrot Polly its lump of sugar moistened in tea,to do the honours of her drawing-room,to extract melody  of sorts out of the untuned piano,to sing as a matter of duty,to attend divine service in her Sunday best on Sunday afternoons,to show me the Gaikwatr's silver-harnessed oxen, and to chaperon me on a round of calls.

She shows us the skin of her forty-ninth tiger which she bagged a few days ago.

The Gaikwar an ex-cattle drover risen to the throne.

He rounded up his dancing girls for my benefit,and made them dance until I was heartily sick of it-life's worst disillusionments to the accompaniment of a monotonous chant, the nautch girls perform their pagoda-like movements.The music,orchestral and vocal ,is equally ghastly.

How attractive elsewhere in India is the impression left by the sinuous grace of the women of the people,who carry their water pitchers to the well with lofty dignity-goddesses descended from Olympus.

But as for that exhibition of stiff legged clumsiness.........!