THE STATES OF INDIA
By LIEUT.-COLONEL SIR DAVID BARR, K.C.S.I.
There is a tendency among visitors to India to regard Native States with a certain amount of curiosity, as places that should be seen, because they differ so much from other parts of India in that they are more picturesque—more 'truly Eastern' as the saying goes—and because, perhaps, they contain more of that barbaric splendour which is fast dying out of the larger towns and districts of British provinces. But few consider the constitution of these States, the facts connected with their ancient history, and the manner in which, during the past hundred years, they have slowly and surely been welded into the Empire. The Rajas are, to the globe-trotter, mysterious personages hedged about with dignity and pomp, which appear to the uninitiated grotesque and unintelligible, and they receive from their officials and subjects an old-world homage and reverence such as is not met with in any other part of the British Empire. That the Rajas are courtly in their manners and profuse in their hospitality adds an additional glamour; but what their real status is, and to what extent they are influenced by those English officers who are styled Agents to the Governor-General, or Residents, or Political Agents, passes the comprehension of the casual visitor, who, after seeing what there is to be seen in any particular State, having visited the city with its palaces (ruined or modern), its mosques, or temples, and having purchased some curiosities of art or manufacture, having ridden on an
682
