more studded
with works of ornament and utility than that in which the greater
part goes to the soldiery. I once asked a Hindoo gentleman, who had
travelled all over India, what part of it he thought most happy and
beautiful. He mentioned some part of Southern India, about Tanjore, I
think, where you could hardly go a mile without meeting some happy
procession, or coming to a temple full of priests, or find an acre of
land uncultivated.

The countries under the Maratha Government improved much in
appearance, and in happiness, I believe, after the mayors of the
palace, who were Brahmans, assumed the Government, and put aside the
Satara Rajas, the descendants of the great Sivaji.[19] Wherever they
could, they conferred the Government of their distant territories
upon Brahmans, who filled all the high offices under them with men of
the same caste, who spent the greater part of their incomes in tombs,
temples, groves, and tanks, that embellished and enriched the face of
the country, and thereby diffused a taste for such works generally
among the people they governed. The appearance of those parts of the
Maratha dominion so governed is infinitely superior to that of the
countries governed by the leaders of the military class, such as
Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla, whose capitals are still mere
standing camps--a collection of hovels, and whose countries are
almost entirely devoid of all those works of ornament and utility
that enrich and adorn those of their neighbours.[20] They destroyed
all they found in those countries when they conquered them; and they
have had neither the wisdom nor the taste to raise others to supply
their places. The Sikh Government is of exactly the same character;
and the countries they governed have, I believe, the same wretched
appearance--they are swarms of human locusts, who prey upon all that
is calculated to enrich and embellish the face of the land they
infest, and all that can tend to improve men in their social
relations, and to link their affection to their soil and their
government.[21] A Hindoo prince is always running to the extreme; he
can never take and keep a middle course. He is either ambitious, and
therefore appropriates all his revenues to the maintenance of
soldiers, to pour out in inroads upon his neighbours; or he is
superstitions, and devotes all his revenue to his priesthood, who
embellish his country at the same time that they weaken it, and
invite invasion, as their pr