Lot Essay
This watercolour was made on 28 April 1789, as the city of Srinagar was being attacked by the Kumaon forces.
'The river here is too rapid to be passed, even by boats, and therefore the bridge of ropes, represented in this plate, offered the only means for the Rajah and his people to effect their retreat, which circumstance presented an affecting scene, and a most melancholy example of the wretched state of society under these petty chieftains, whose views of government are little better than those of savages; and with whom all questions of right are, as with duellists, referred to arms; considering, like them, no decisions so correct, and so honourable, as those which have been recorded in letters of blood.
This bridge, which is 240 feet in length, is an ingenious contrivance, and so simple that it may be soon erected and soon removed. On each side of the river two strong and lofty poles are fixed in the ground, and kept together with transverse pieces at their upper ends, over which large ropes, made fast to the rocks or ground, are stretched and extended from side to side. From the bottom of these upright poles are carried other ropes, which are drawn towards the upper ones by a lacing of cords, while flat pieces of bamboo are so fastened to the lower cords as to form a tolerably commodious footway.
On the top of the rock near the bridge are the remains of a building formerly inhabited by a Faquier, who is a kind of Indian hermit' (Oriental Scenery).
There are three later versions of the subject in oils by Thomas Daniell (see Shellim, 1979, TD20, TD43, and TD64).
'The river here is too rapid to be passed, even by boats, and therefore the bridge of ropes, represented in this plate, offered the only means for the Rajah and his people to effect their retreat, which circumstance presented an affecting scene, and a most melancholy example of the wretched state of society under these petty chieftains, whose views of government are little better than those of savages; and with whom all questions of right are, as with duellists, referred to arms; considering, like them, no decisions so correct, and so honourable, as those which have been recorded in letters of blood.
This bridge, which is 240 feet in length, is an ingenious contrivance, and so simple that it may be soon erected and soon removed. On each side of the river two strong and lofty poles are fixed in the ground, and kept together with transverse pieces at their upper ends, over which large ropes, made fast to the rocks or ground, are stretched and extended from side to side. From the bottom of these upright poles are carried other ropes, which are drawn towards the upper ones by a lacing of cords, while flat pieces of bamboo are so fastened to the lower cords as to form a tolerably commodious footway.
On the top of the rock near the bridge are the remains of a building formerly inhabited by a Faquier, who is a kind of Indian hermit' (Oriental Scenery).
There are three later versions of the subject in oils by Thomas Daniell (see Shellim, 1979, TD20, TD43, and TD64).