Note 14 — Chapter XVI

"The same was the practice of the Indian Rajahs. Whenever a ryot discovered either treasure or gold in situ he was most cruelly treated, to compel him to confess and to give up what he had secreted. As, of course, he had secreted a part of his trouvaille it was a hard struggle between his cupidity and the ruler's bastinado. About 1840, some peasants near Baroda, in Guzerat, found lumps of gold, which they carried before his Highness the Gaikwar, and received in return a terrible flogging. The Hindú, with that secretiveness which has ever been his shield against the tyranny of rulers and conquerors, resolved for the future to keep his good fortune to himself. The quality of gold which from time to time has appeared amongst these people, made the shrewder sort of European suspect. But the inertness, or, rather, the terror of new things, that possessed the then rulers of the land; 'threw cold water' upon all attempts to trace the diggings, which, accordingly, were worked by the people till the present year. This is the simple history of 'gold mining in the Deccan.'"