atta princes. This catastrophe left him the only sovereign in India
possessed of any degree of substantial independence, and with a
territory which, after all the cessions, was still of great extent,
though much scattered and intersected by the possessions of Holkar and
other rulers; so that, as Bishop Heber describes it in 1825, "not even
Swabia or the Palatinate can offer a more checkered picture of
interlaced sovereignties than Maywar and indeed all Malwa.... Scarcely
any two villages belong to the sane sovereign." His frontier extended on
the north to the Chumbul, and on the south reached Boorhanpoor and the
Taptee, almost enveloping the remaining dominions of Holkar, and
bordering westward on the Guikwar's country near Baroda.

The whole superficies comprehended, in a very irregular shape, about
40,000 square miles, with a revenue supposed to exceed L2,000,000; and
the army kept on foot (independent of garrisons and the British
contingent) amounted to 20,000 regular infantry, with from 15,000 to
20,000 horse, and a park of 300 guns. The maintenance of this large
military establishment was a grievous burden to the country, and
frequently involved him in great pecuniary embarrassment; but to the end
of his life it continued to be his chief care. Gwalior, where the
headquarters had been fixed since 1810, became the royal residence; and
the _bushkur_, or camp, as it was called, gradually swelled into a great
city. The condition of his states in the latter years of his reign, is
thus characterized by the amiable prelate already quoted:--"Sindiah is
himself a man by no means deficient in talents or good intentions, but
his extensive and scattered territories have never been under any
regular system of control; and his Mahratta nobles, though they too are
described as a better race than the Rajpoots, are robbers almost by
profession, and only suppose themselves to thrive when they are living
at the expense of their neighbours. Still, from his well-disciplined
army and numerous artillery, his government has a stability which
secures peace, at least to the districts under his own eye; and as the
Pindarrees feared to provoke him, and even professed to be his subjects,
his country has retained its wealth and prosperity to a greater degree
than most other parts of Central India."

Dowlut Rao died at Gwalior, March 21, 1827, leaving no male issue; and
with him expired the direct line of Ranajee Sindiah: but he had
previously e