They lead a hard life, and
generally die with great suddenness. The Native States have a
wholesome horror of English newspapers, which may throw light
on their peculiar methods of government, and do their best to
choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them out of their
mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not understand that
nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native
States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent
limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one
end of the year to the other. They are the dark places of the earth,
full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the
Telegraph on one side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid.
When I left the train I did business with divers Kings, and
in eight days passed through many changes of life. Sometimes I
wore dress-clothes and consorted with Princes and Politicals,
drinking from crystal and eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out
upon the ground and devoured what I could get, from a plate made
of leaves, and drank the running water, and slept under the same
rug as my servant.
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