Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/86

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GUJARÁT AND THE GUJARÁTIS.

formidable rocks of Girásia[1] and Sirdárs[2] claims, crossed the shoals of internal and external opposition, refilled the sands of the almost run-out revenue glass, bridged over boundary chasms,[3] spread the light of education where once "reigned and revelled "the gloom of ignorance; the judicial, financial, and sanitary "chaos," he has reduced to "order," which, Edmund Burke tells you, is "the foundation of all good things." Instead of the army of athletes who expended their brute force in wrangling with brute creatures, Sir Mádov Row introduced an army of intellectual wrestlers who fight their foes in their several provinces with faithful courage. Mulhár Ráo's Baroda was the most uncleanable of Augean stables; but with their brooms and mops and spades (no offence, gentlemen, this may be a fine Sanskrit figure) the enlightened warriors have swept away all abuses, and made it all "sweet and clean" for young Siáji Ráo and his little family of eighteen lacs.[4]

  1. A vassal, generally a small landed proprietor.
  2. A military vassal.
  3. Boundary disputes between neighbouring states.
  4. 18,00,000, population of Baroda.