1 236
2 THE LORDS OF THE HILLS J
3 CHAPTER II.
4 All the institutions and appendages necessary to a princely
5 court and government were now called into requisition in the little
6 state of Jummoo ; and though but little understood, still in this
7 young and self-created principality, things and matters, as well as
8 Rajahs themselves, must be allowed to go on in a rude, plain,
9 simple manner of their own. However, Mai Dehu seems to have
10 known and heard sufficient of men and manners, kings and courts,
11 to introduce and to make known and respected, his royal seal
12 and signature. But he is said to have had in his princi-
13 pality or at his court only one writer, who acted at once the
14 part of Moonshee, Dewan and Wuzeer. He either knew little
15 of or did not wish to establish any thing like an Adawlut or
16 court of justice, so that he was in himself the sole judge and
17 jury of the state. Leases of lands, grants, jaghires and tene-
18 ments were now legally and systematically drawn up and
19 signed in his name, and in which he was entitled Soorj Bunse
20 Rajah Maha Rajah Mai Dehu, (descendant of the son and
21 rajah of rajahs) whose orders were to last for ever and ever, &c.
22 &c. He was now able when occasion required to assemble
23 round him three or four hundred armed followers ; nor did he,
24 with such instruments at his command, lose the opportunity of
25 making himself known and dreaded all over the neighbouring
26 lowlands, where by plunder and rapine, nightly inroads and
27 surprises, the burning of villages, with their sleeping inhabi-
28 tants, and other such acts, he showed that he little respect-