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IN THE C. P.; 
 
 OR 
 
 SKETCHES IN PROSE k IN VERSE, 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF 
 
 SCENES km MANNERS IN THE CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA. 
 
 BY 
 
 "PEKIN. 
 
 ALLAHABAD: 
 FEINTED AT THE PIONEER PRESS. 
 
 18S1. 
 
A4t.o-i3lo 
 
TO LILY. 
 
 Veeses, like floTvers, with, bashful hope are fraught, 
 And the poor stanzas which this Book contains 
 
 To Thee, the Queen of Flowers, are, trembling, brought 
 To crave a boon, as guerdon of their pains — 
 
 Thy smile ! — This gained, they hide the blush which grows 
 
 Behind the broad, straight back of henchman Prose ! 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 These sketclies-were publislied. in the Pioneer (under the 
 signature of " Pekin") from time to time during the past 
 eight years. They are re-published in the hope that for 
 others, besides the writer, they may have interest as pour- 
 traying some of'. the lights and shadows of mofussil life. The 
 romance of the " Gorgeous East " is rapidly fading away; but 
 even on the sleepy levels of the Central Provinces there are 
 beauties of scene and season, and passing gleams of humorous 
 contrast, which lift the spirit awhile above the monotony of 
 official life, and out of the narrow " hum-drum " range of 
 provincial thought. The progress of communications and the 
 development of commerce will soon change the manners and 
 customs of the Central Provinces ; and, therefore, it is the 
 more worth the while of a sympathetic observer to retain 
 some record of things as they are; 
 
 Nagpue, ) L. K. L. 
 
 November 1881. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Although tjie Central Provinces have had Sir Richard Temple 
 to restart on them, and although they have been the nursery of 
 not a feiv distinguished public men, they are still terra incog- 
 nita to numbers of Anglo-Indians. Against the contingency 
 of these shetches being glanced at by any person who is not fami- 
 liar with the 0. P., and who cares to v/nderstand the adminis- 
 trative system to which reference is occasionally made in them, 
 the following explanatory details are, therefore, prefixed. 
 
 What may be called the taaorocosm of administration in 
 the C. P. consists of a Chief Commissioner, a Judicial Commis- 
 sioner (or High Court), and the Heads of the Departments of 
 Police, Excise, Forests, Engineering, and 'Education. The 
 macrocosm has its ordinary centre at Nagpur ; but in the hot 
 weather this centre shifts to the Mahadev hill-group of the 
 Satpura Range. 
 
 There are eighteen microcosms Or districts. The members 
 of each microcosm are the Deputy Commissioner (who has 
 charge of the district ; and is at once Collector, Magistrate, and 
 Judge) ; his Assistant (or Extra Assistant, as he is called, if he be 
 a native) ; the District Superintendent' of Police, and the Civil 
 Surgeon (who is som,etimes an Apothecary, or a Native Hospital 
 Assistant) . 
 
 Between the macrocosm and the microcosms there is a stellar 
 group of Commissioners of Divisions, each of whom supervises 
 the business of a certain number of districts, and is a Sessions 
 Judge and Court of Appeal. 
 
"^111 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Owing to the fact that judicial functions are not as yet differ- 
 entiated from the other duties of administration, the Deputy 
 Commissioner and his Assistants have to work very hard ; and 
 even the Gommissioners are not rich in leisure. The plague of 
 ennui which might otherwise become epidemic in those micro- 
 cosms which are not enlivened by the military, is thus avoided. 
 
 The majority of the Deputy Gommissioners are inilitary men. 
 A few civilians creep from time to time into the vacancies left 
 by leave or retirement. 
 
 Any passed pupil of Mr. Scoones or Mr. Wren, who joins the 
 G. P. Gmnmission, will at once be hnown as a " supernumerary." 
 To borrow an ideq,from Hermetic philosophy, the supernumerary 
 may be described as an " elemental spirit " dwelling, for the most 
 part, in inh and foolscap. He cannot reasonably hope to become 
 a Gommissioner ; and he can only be incarnated as a Deputy 
 Gommissioner after several decades of concentrating toil. 
 
 Optimism teaches us to be satisfied with the happiness of the 
 majority ; and that life itself is to be regarded as a good. The 
 latter maxim is found true by the oldest supernumerary in the 
 pleasant cold season which these Provinces enjoy : and that there 
 are other amenities ' of scene and society the following pages 
 (written by one who is approaching the dignity of Patriarch of 
 the Elementals) may serve to adumbrate. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Part I. — (Scenic.) 
 
 PROSE. Page. 
 
 1. Madan Mahal (Jabalpur) .,. 1 
 
 2. The Temple of Nur Sing (Nur- 
 
 singhpur) ... ... 6 
 
 3. ATisionoftheArpa (Bilaspiir), 10 
 
 4. A Cotton Press (Wardah) ... 15 
 
 5. By the Eiver (Pulganw) ^ ... 20 
 
 6. Swevens (Hinganghat) ... 24 
 
 7. Through Treasure Town to 
 
 Treasure Isle (Bhandara) ... 28 _ 
 
 8. The Gauhs (Arvi) ... ... 34 
 
 9. Opening aBridge(ChandaDist.), 40 
 
 10. Moonj (Nagpur) ... ... 44 
 
 11. In the Gh-ain-Sheds (Nagpur) ... 47 
 
 12. At Eamtek (Near Nagpur) , . . 52 
 
 VEESB. 
 
 Page 
 
 1. Marhle Rocks 
 
 ... 4 
 
 2. Durgayati 
 
 ... 9 
 
 3. Vidharha 
 
 ... 15 
 
 4. A Legend of Pownar 
 
 ... 19 
 
 5. At Girur 
 
 .... 23 
 
 6. "Sans Souoi " 
 
 ... 27 
 
 7. The Isle of Treasure 
 
 ... 34 
 
 8. On Tour 
 
 ... 38 
 
 9. The Indian Drum ... 
 
 ... 43 
 
 10. "ParNiente" ... 
 
 ... 46 
 
 11. Nag-Panohami 
 
 ... 50 
 
 12. Hope ... 
 
 ... 56 
 
Part II. — (Official.)- 
 
 PROSE. 
 
 Page. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 Page. 
 
 1. Founding a City 
 
 ... 57 
 
 1. The Durbar 
 
 .. 62 
 
 2. The Last Half -hour 
 
 ... 64 
 
 2. The CutcheiTy Well 
 
 .. 67 
 
 3. A Municipal Election 
 
 ... 68 
 
 3. The Old Marwari 
 
 .. 72 
 
 4. A Dispensary Meeting 
 
 ... 73 
 
 4. Queen-Emprees vs. Buffalo 
 
 .. 77 
 
 6. OurKallar 
 
 ... 78 
 
 5. Day after Day ... 
 
 .. 82 
 
 6. A Prison Conference 
 
 ... 83 
 
 6. The Wrong Ghat 
 
 .. 88 
 
 7. Municipal Sorrows 
 
 ... 90 
 
 7. Desine Querelis ... 
 
 .. 96 
 
 8. The Supernumerary 
 
 ... 96 
 
 8. June 
 
 .. 101 
 
 9. TheD. C. 
 
 ... 102 
 
 9. September 
 
 .. 105 
 
 10. The D. S. P. ... 
 
 ... 106 
 
 10. Sick 
 
 ... 110 
 
 11. The Civil Surgeon 
 
 ... Ill 
 
 11. October 
 
 ... 115 
 
 12. The Padre 
 
 ... 116 
 
 12. The Tin 
 
 ... 120 
 
Part III. — (Social.) 
 
 PROSE, 
 
 Page. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 Page 
 
 1. Beeieged 
 
 123 
 
 1. Ubique Amor ... 
 
 ... 126 
 
 2. Subjectivity 
 
 127 
 
 2. Yucca Bells 
 
 ... 130 
 
 3. Four Conversations with a, 
 
 District Officer— Part I... 131 
 
 3. A Golden Lattice 
 
 ... 135 
 
 4. Do. do. II.. 
 
 136 
 
 4. Paghal 
 
 ... 142 
 
 5. Do. do. III.. 
 
 143 
 
 5. A Spray 
 
 ... 150 
 
 6. Do. do. rV.. 
 
 150 
 
 6. Pipette 
 
 ... 157 
 
 7. A Paper Chase ... 
 
 159 
 
 7. Tresses 
 
 ... 162 
 
 8. Gossip 
 
 163 
 
 8. Laughter 
 
 ... 165 
 
 9. Philosophy at a Band-stand 
 
 166 
 
 9. Roses 
 
 ... 169 
 
 10. Our Crosses 
 
 170 
 
 10. Iced Peg 
 
 ... 173 
 
 11. A Bazaar 
 
 174 
 
 11. The Lily 
 
 ... 177 
 
 12. Golf ... 
 
 178 
 
 12. Hog-StioWTig ... 
 
 ... 181 
 
 13. Problems of Indian Life 
 
 182 
 
 13. Dead 
 
 ... 184 
 
 14. Nagpore Electrified 
 
 185 
 
 14. Can I Forget ... 
 
 ,., 190 
 
 15. Sky Races 
 
 191 
 
 15. Rhyme's Reward ■ 
 
 ... 194 
 
 16. With the Nagpore Hunt .. 
 
 195 
 
 16. Farewell 
 
 ... 201 
 
Part I. 
 
 SCENIC. 
 
1. 
 
 One said ; " The land is bare and drear, 
 No fair romantic dells appear, 
 No Muse of Poetry is near ! 
 
 II. 
 My friends are serfs in Prodi's mill, 
 They grind but salt and sorrow still. 
 They love not the poetic (jmU ! 
 
 III. 
 Lo ! we grow harsh and yellow-akioiied— 
 It shall be called prosaic Ind, 
 The land against God's love has sinned ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then sighed the Tamarind to the Palm — 
 " Have courage ; from this thunderous calm 
 A rain will fall and bring us balm ! 
 
 V. 
 
 And yonder Briton of the plain 
 Who cries a fretful cry of pain 
 Will feel new motions in his brain. 
 
 VI. 
 He sees not the fair things we see ; 
 Blind fisher of the sunlight-sea. 
 Orbed with the bright day's poesy ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 He sets his couch beneath the stars 
 No noisy world his slumber mars ; 
 His spirit feels no prison-bars ! 
 
 VIII. 
 Behind the Palm and Tamarind 
 The moon leads up a gentle wind — 
 Man's heart, and not the land has sinned ! " 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 9. Verse ii., Line 2, read " drave " for " drove." 
 
 „ 21. Line 3, read " daze " for " doze." 
 
 „ 28. Verse in., Line 7, recM? "stales " for "states." 
 
 „ 39. Verse xiii., Line 1, read " tethered " for " lettered." 
 
 „ 64. Line 17, reffl(i " dusky" for " dusty." 
 
 „ 55. Line 16, recM^ "calf y-sene" for " oalfy-seene." 
 
 „ 71. Line 9, read "adapt" for " adopt." 
 
 „ 84. Line 19, read " Steyne" for " Sfeyne." 
 
 „ 89., Line 2, read " muttered" for " mutterd." 
 
 „ 89. Line 9, read " chandan " for " chandon." 
 
 „ 110. Verse I., Line 3, read "lying" for "laying." 
 
 „ 143. Last Line but four, read " imbedded" for " imbeded." 
 
 „ 159. Line 25, read " Wby " for " Wliey." 
 
 „ 169. Verse ii., Line 3, read "fairy" for " fair." 
 
 „ 186. Line 9, read " Israelites " for " Israelities." 
 
I N T H E C. p. 
 
 PART I. 
 SCENIC. 
 
 MADAN MAHAL. 
 
 Turn aside from tlie main road from Jabalpur, where the 
 finger-post directs you to Madan Mahal, and passing through 
 a handful of huts clustered about a ruined well, you come 
 by a peepul and mango-shadowed pathway, the course of which 
 is narrowed and broken by juts and root-like ridges of gra- 
 nite, to the foot of a curious hill. From top to bottom it is 
 studded with slabs, ball-like boulders, and balanced plates of 
 blackened rock. Only a starving shrub or two clings in the 
 dust of its crevices. A steep and sandy pathway slips past a 
 sturdy outlier, and goes warily up between the imminent crags. 
 It gains a level, and we find a mango and a palm or two 
 hidden in the wild. A ponderous block, balanced as it were 
 magically on the peak of a massive upright, attracts us for a 
 moment. "We pass on to a steeper rise, where the way has been 
 blasted through obstinate granite, and by a conical pool amid 
 the rocks, the slowly-failing waters of which have left their 
 ring-like records on the boulders of the marge, we climb 
 above the plane of a hermit-held cavern and come to the ridge 
 of the hill. At the further end of it a strange sight meets us. 
 A boulder mightier than them all and rounded to the likeness 
 of a gigantic pebble, leans against a firm-bedded fragment. 
 
IN THE C. P. 
 
 On the top of it is poised a ruined fort. This is the fort of 
 Madan. Mahal, built by the Gond Prince, Madan Sing, in the 
 year of our Lord 1100. 
 
 Let us ascend to the summit of the tower. A broken and 
 narrow staircase leads us from one embattled platform to 
 another. We look forth upon green corn-fields on the one 
 hand, and on the other upon a confused and unnatural medley 
 of tumbled and rounded black rocks strewn at random over 
 ridge and hollow. The contrast between the two prospects is 
 so complete that the rugged eminence with its fort atop, 
 which seems to rule the rougher view, assumes an individuality 
 in our eyes. 
 
 We cannot but think that that Madan Sing who raised 
 this mahal on the giant pebble, must have had an individuality 
 much stronger than his tower. Whether his relations to the 
 people he governed were beneficial or otherwise, he evident- 
 ly intended that they should be lasting. An unassailable 
 position, walls so strongly built that they have stood for 700 
 years, dispositions for enduring comfort in the shape of gusul- 
 hhanas, a tank and outlying cloisters, or piping times of peace- 
 chambers for his family — all indicate a determination to 
 remain, whether moodily or joyfully. It is clear that the 
 notion of government which this prince possessed was to stick 
 fast as a personal power by the homes of his subjects. 
 
 The sharp whistle of a kite, shrilHng near at hand, startles 
 us. His white wings and yellow beak flash past, and lead our 
 gaze down to the gleam of the tanks that lie neighbourly 
 below. Between them runs the lengthy street of the ancient 
 town of Garha, long the capital of Gond rule. A straggling 
 street of mud- walled, tile-roofed houses, from the thresholds 
 of which the palace of Madan Mahal looks like a watch-tower 
 on the hill. 
 
 This place was in those old days prosperous. Under the eye 
 of their prince the townsmen felt a confidence which the 
 
MADAN MAHAL. 
 
 roughness of the times seldom warranted. Trust is the basis 
 of trade, and they showed it. Chieftains with their retainers 
 arriving to do reverence at the court, made a splendour in 
 the long street. Madan Sing himself, coming down from his 
 castle-height, would sometimes pass along, and then all 
 loungers would stand aside, and shop-keepers rising up give 
 salutation, and stare broadly, whispering the while to country 
 cousins — " The Rajah — Have you seen his new fort on the 
 hill there ?" 
 
 How were they affected towards him — these shop-keepers 
 and the tillers of the adjacent corn-fields, come in for a day in 
 town ? One can imagine them either fearing and hating him 
 very much, or trusting and loving him. They could not be 
 indifferent. Was he not of them and among them ? Was 
 not his life to be passed in the work of governing them? 
 Was he not the source of all law, and of the punishments 
 which enforce law ? None might fancy him a mere sojourner 
 for a season, or a lodger in that rock-built palace, and put 
 him off as such. He knew all the chiefs and the great towns- 
 men ; and what he said they heard as the voice of an authority 
 which owned no appeal. One may be sure that the name 
 of Madan Sing was either a bugbear for refractory children, 
 or a crowing cry for urchins. In neither case did it signify 
 an abstraction. Abstractions have small power over ignorant 
 minds. 
 
 The long-drawn, trembling whistle of the kite again rouses 
 us. This time the bird rises and flaps away to the right, and 
 lifting our eyes to follow, we see through the thick sunshine 
 the white cantonments and the gleaming bungalows of the 
 City of the Peaks. This is the modern Garha. Prosperity 
 has passed from the Sagar to the Hanuman Tal. Behind are 
 low hills ; but on them no tower beacons. 
 
 Where is the Madan Mahal of to-day ? Some one points 
 ibo a square, thatched building on the edge of the town, and 
 
IN THE C. P. 
 
 says — That is the Zillah Outcherry. Who dwells there ? we 
 ask. Who wields now the personal power that was Madan 
 Sing's ? The answer is — His name cannot be told of a cer- 
 tainty. He who was hailed yesterday as lord there, may be 
 gone to-day. !N"o one established ruler keeps a liie-long dom- 
 inion in those chambers. Many come and go, and their stay- 
 ing or flitting is a thing indifferent to the people. They that 
 arrive are but the ministers of certain authoritative ideas. 
 Prom their words an appeal lies to loftier exponents ; and all 
 men know that they are the gomashtas of a power unrevealed 
 in the flesh. The spirit of abstractions is the true King of 
 Gar ha. 
 
 The King has changed — and the people ? Some peasants, 
 bent on laying their offering of grain at the shrine of a temple 
 not far from the summit, come trooping up the hill. By their 
 faces, so unintelligent and brutalised by early toil, we see that 
 they cannot have changed for the better in knowledge. How 
 then shall they pay due reverence to their King ? The time 
 has gone by for pomp and show. By what magic shall the 
 spirit of abstractions appeal to the hearts of the poor ? Here 
 in the hands of one of them is perhaps the answer to our 
 query — A stamped " true copy" of a judgment. This is the 
 bannerol of justice, brocaded with silver, which every meanest 
 man among them delights to unfurl. Justice is the Avatar 
 of the unrevealed power, which is King : and to Justice they 
 pay homage. 
 
 MARBLE ROCKS. 
 
 The moonlit gorge looks in the streatn ; 
 Rock-faces, where they front the beam. 
 Are strangely pallid in their gleam. 
 
MARBLE ROCKS, 
 
 A high cliff-shadow darkly falls ; 
 We glide betwixt enchanted walls ; 
 One dazzles and one half appals. 
 
 III. 
 Only the oar's low sound is heard ; 
 Or, when the rowlocks louder gird, 
 The sharp flight of a startled bird ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Light laughter breaks the stilly spell ; 
 The steersraan lifts his hand to tell 
 How here the hathi's footsteps fell, 
 
 V. 
 And dimpled with resistless shock. 
 Deep imprints in the aged rook ; 
 Making its marble fame a mock ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then bids our eyes their aspect keep 
 On where the cliff-tops nearer creep — 
 The marvel of the monkey's leap ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 "0 doubtless, Sir, this tale is true — 
 The monkey leapt — ^but, if there grew 
 On the crag's edge a lithe bamboo — 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Is the stretched tale less wondrous made ? 
 
 The bandar was no whit afraid. 
 
 When with his tail the long boughs swayed !" 
 
 IX. 
 
 He leapt into the shades of time, 
 And we, who linger here to rhyme, 
 Behold but carbonate of lime ! 
 
IN THJi C. P. 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF NUR SING. 
 
 The temple of Nur Sing Jee is not architecturally but typi- 
 cally notable. Its tbree parabola domes, as seen transiently 
 by tbe traveller in the Nerbudda Valley, are symbols of one 
 solution of a great problem. How to spend creditably the 
 superfluities of one's wealth is a question to torment the soul. 
 Custom helps the decision. If more than one man has made 
 his name great by endowing hospitals or keeping a racing 
 steed, why should not yet another do the same ? If gladiator- 
 shows are in vogue, why not build an amphitheatre ? 
 
 I am assured that in coming to the determination which he 
 did, Jaganath Sing acted strictly in accordance with the 
 notions of his time. He was a landlord ; and therefore more 
 prone to the idiosyncrasies of wealthy estate-holders than to 
 those of the unfeoffed capitalist. Model cottages would have 
 been more in his line than model lodging-houses, but unfor- 
 tunately in the year 1795 the idea of sweet homes for the poor 
 had not sprouted in the valley. Experimental farming would 
 have been more congenial than a mining company, but neither 
 of these aims were then conceived. He did what gentlemen 
 in like circumstances were then in the habit of doing, — he 
 began to build a worship-house for Vishnu. 
 
 The popularity of this ambition was owing to many causes. 
 In the first place, the work has that religious sanction which 
 gives the glow of pious merit to the author, and suggests the 
 thought of it to others. In the next place, there is always an 
 interest attaching to the design and erection of any edifice of 
 pretension, which is by no means a small consideration to a 
 man of leisure. In the third place, and this is the most impor- 
 tant thought of all, there are certain ceremonies connected with 
 the consecration of a temple which give scope to such an 
 expenditure of largess as must needs prove the greatness of the 
 giver. The glory of bringing in the idol is almost greater than 
 
THE TEMPLE OF NUK SING. 
 
 that of the finished shrine. The utywpan feasts are the panis} 
 et ciroenses of the Brahmin crowd. Except the marriage of his 
 daughter, there is no occasion upon which the name of a Hindu 
 may more splendidly wax or more miserably wane. Jaganath 
 Sing went on patiently building for six years. In the seventh 
 year from its commencem.ent, the shadowy central chamber of 
 the pil^ was ready for the reception of the carven mwrat or 
 image. It was time for the utyapan of Nur Sing, the Avatar 
 of Yishnu which he had fixed upon for honor. 
 
 While cunning carvers from Jaipur gave finishing touches 
 to the stone block which they had fashioned into the sem- 
 blance of the incarnate god, Jaganath collected great stores 
 of grain within the walls of his mansion. 
 
 The lowest storey was filled to overfiowing. Piles of white 
 moondee wheat, and ruddy hathiya wheat crumbled into trick- 
 ling grains at the tread of the visitor. Heaps of yellow ddl 
 contrasted pleasingly with mountains of green moong. A. 
 snowy mound of whitest flour told how the women, whose 
 mill- stones sounded all day in the courtyard, had ground and 
 ground. Near where they sat lay long ranges of chulas, or 
 cooking hearths of plastered mud. 
 
 The Brahmins came in, in throngs, from far and wide. Each 
 man got his cooking hearth and his fill of flour ; and they 
 baked their cakes and ate on the evening and on the morning 
 of the great day. 
 
 They praised the name of the great and pious lord of the 
 South Bank, whose magnanimity no man could doubt. Had 
 he not spent a lakh of rupees on food and chulas for poor holy 
 men ? They made glorious his god's utyapan with the zeal of 
 their worship about the image on the dais, and the fervency 
 of their muttering from the pothis or sacred books. Blinded 
 with flower wreaths and sated with food-offerings, the hideous 
 idol almost smiled upon the gathering, while the music sound- 
 ed deafeningly, and the dancers madly whirled. Six selected 
 
IN THE C. P. 
 
 Brahmins lifted the throne of the god and bore him into the 
 temple. 
 
 The shout that went up to heaven at this moment was as 
 incense to the soul of Jaganath. It was heard by Gronds and 
 low caste husbandmen in distant villages. "Nur Sing, Nur 
 Sing ! Great is the name of the lord of the South Bank ! " 
 Did he not deserve this praise ? For six years he had been 
 spending his thoughts and his m.oney on the raising of this 
 shrine. It had cost him three lakhs of rupees. Surely he, 
 too, had signally solved the problems which perplexes rich 
 men — how to spend creditably the superfluity of one's wealth. 
 The sound of his fame would go on and on till it reached Nag- 
 pur ; there the great Bhonslah would hear it and approve. 
 
 The great Bhonslah heard it. That he approved, is witnessed 
 by the following facts : — He sent a silver ehoh, or stick of 
 honor, to Jaganath, and decreed that he and his family should 
 bear the title of Rao (Prince) thenceforth and for ever. 
 
 Thus was this pious gentle's fame exalted by the mouth of 
 royalty. From the voices of the people his deed obtained 
 another and a perpetual recognition. 
 
 The town of Ghota Gadawarra, where he had built his fame, 
 received in current appellation the name of " Nursingpore." 
 Rao Jaganath is dead long ago, but his temple stands ; it seems 
 to say to the wealthy Hindu who brings his ofEering there — Go 
 and do thou likewise. The savings from the revenues of not 
 a few fair estates are yearly devoted to the end thus suggested. 
 No ohohs of honor arrive from Nagpur, but the churches rise 
 without them. 
 
 A foreign Government which holds a different religion can 
 pronounce clearly against a devotion to aims spiritual, that leads 
 to a neglect of material enterprise. It declares its preference 
 for secular endowment, for the building of schools and dispensa- 
 ries. It would fain see resources of the land developed by those 
 whose greatest interest it is to make it fertile, and promises 
 
DTJEGAVATI. 
 
 IcMlluts and sunnuds of honor for all who comply. But custom 
 and the voice of the giiru are stronger than these inducements. 
 The teaching and the conservancy, the mining and the ma- 
 nuring, which Sahibs love, are things alien and yet unprized of 
 the people. Why sacrifice the certain fame of the temple- 
 founder for the uncertain credit of a patron of sanitation ? 
 Religion is before all. The religion of duty to one's fellow- 
 man is not yet orthodox here. The holy beggar must be 
 cherished at the expense of the low caste labourer. The rail- 
 ings of the village school rot for want of paint, while the 
 neighbouring temple walls are being whited. 
 
 DURGAVATI. 
 
 t 
 
 The kingdom of the Gonds is gone, 
 
 But noble memories remain, 
 And with a loving awe we con 
 
 The battle-page which ends thy reign, 
 
 Durgavati ! 
 
 II. 
 
 When Asaf Khan with many men 
 
 From Singagarh through Garha drove 
 
 Thy stubborn Gonds, in a fast glen 
 
 Thoustood'st at bay and shook'st thy glaive, 
 
 Durgavati ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Their arrows filled the air with gleam. 
 Loud cannons made the gorge resound. 
 
 And in thy rear the treacherous stream. 
 Swelled into flood, and hope was drowned, 
 
 Durgavati ! 
 
10 IN THE C. P. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Brave daughter of the Rajput blood 
 When that disaster noised, thy pride, 
 
 High as the howdah's golden hood. 
 Breasted a dagger's point and died ! 
 
 Durgavati ! 
 
 V. 
 
 The kingdom of the Gonds is gone. 
 And strangers rule o'er hill and plain. 
 
 But never statelier form has shone 
 
 On the still lake which owns thy reign, 
 
 Durgavati ! 
 
 In 1564, Asaf Khan, an officer of the great Atlar, invaded Gondwarra and 
 defeated the Queen Regent, Rani Durgavati, at Singargarh, in the JabaJpur 
 district. She retreated towards Mandla. A large tank near Jahalpur is still 
 called the Rani Talao, in memory of her. 
 
 A VISION OF THE ARPA. 
 
 I SHALL never forget it. It haunts me in my dreams wher- 
 ever I go. I think I see it now — that deathly river-bed. 
 
 Who would have thought that the dreary plain which 
 stretches about the Sentinel mountain had within itself a 
 sunken tract more dreary ? A hideous serpent of sand crawls 
 through the bare and crumbling fields, making their desolate 
 extent, so sparsely sprinkled with the verdure of jungle 
 shrubs, look tender and temperate by contrast. 
 
 I had chosen, in the heat of a violent May, to exchange the 
 close atmosphere of my sleeping-room for the broad chamber 
 which has the star-lit heaven for a roof ; and my couch was so 
 placed that I lay within a stone's cast of a sandy channel which 
 was once the broad bed of a river. For some nights I enjoyed 
 
A VISION OF THE ARPA. 11 
 
 a pleasant and regular repose in this situation, where the airs of 
 heaven came softly, and lulled me to sleep with .their coolness. 
 
 At length, one evening, the light wind which had favoured 
 me changed its direction, and blew from the opposite side 
 of the channel ; and in the night which followed, my slumber 
 was so disturbed by the persistence of a strange and ominous 
 vision that I slept in that place again no more. 
 
 It seemed to me that I had waked, and was sitting upright 
 in the moonlight, watching the mists that rose from the sandy 
 bed, where all that remained of a powerful river crept along in 
 a thread-like driblet, or lingered in scattered pools. I observed 
 that in one spot, directly opposite to me, the vapours, gathering 
 together and growing cloud-like in their consistency, became 
 yet thicker and darker, until their opacity assumed a definite 
 outline, and their solidity took a distinguishable shape. At the 
 same time, as if impelled by the urgency of the breeze which 
 puffed fitfully behind it, this mist-born embodiment moved 
 smoothly across the level strip of sand which lay between, and 
 ascending swiftly the bank on which my couch was placed, 
 stood shadow-like in the moonlight at my feet. The dimness 
 and uncertainty which had draped the lines of its figure passed 
 instantly ofE like the confusion from the hues of a picture 
 thrown by a magic lantern upon a whitened wall ; and I saw 
 the phantom of a bowed and dejected but yet lithe-limbed old 
 man, the color of whose skin and whose features were as of a 
 native of the country. His grey head was heaped with sand, 
 as with the ashes of mourning. About his loins was a narrow 
 girdle made of the twine-like fibre of the roots of a wild plant. 
 His bare body was covered with filth of every description, and 
 a green tangle of water weeds and foul scum hung about his 
 long, lean arms and fingers. In one hand he held a piece of 
 wood, shaped like a truncheon, and in the other a light basket, 
 in which, besides several phials of the kind drug- vendors carry 
 about with them, was a heaping up of gathered filth and reek- 
 
12 IN TUE C. P. 
 
 ing corruption, sucli as never before offended human nostrils. 
 Overpowered by the wonder of the apparition and by the stench 
 which accompanied it, I seemed to lose both the strength to 
 move and the ability to exclaim ; and sat there, dumbly staring 
 at it, and trembling at the woeful gleam which came from its 
 rheumy eyes, like the reflection of the lunar ray from pools on 
 a marshy moor. Suddenly the phantom raised the truncheon 
 which its right hand grasped, and dropping the basket from its 
 left, pointed with the disengaged fingers to a scale marked in 
 red upon the thin end of the stick. I saw, then, that it was an 
 instrument for weighing, commonly used by the villagers of 
 the neighbourhood, and resembling in principle the old English 
 steel-yard. Standing in this attitude, the ajaparition spoke ; 
 and its voice was hollow and weak, and having a bitter gurgle 
 in it, such as the voice of that stream must have which flows 
 through the valley of the shadowof death. " Ha ! Ha !" it said, 
 " lives of men — ^for each seer, a score ! Little do they think 
 when they insult the aged river with their wanton defilements 
 that their health — nay, even their lives — may pay the forfeit 
 of their sin. They fancy that because I am old and drivelling, 
 therefore I am powerless for harm ; but see this basket of their 
 peltings — ^what fine matter for sublimation, condensings, distil- 
 lation, is here. For each seer a score, as I said, and my friend 
 the sun helps me bravely. I do but draw the stopper out of 
 this phial, and" — as the phantom suited the action to the 
 word, it seemed to me that I fell back in a swoon. Perhaps 
 it was but an interval of dreamless sleep. It did not last long. 
 I recovered to the perception that the dreadful vision was still 
 there. With a louder voice than before, the incarnation of the 
 dying river began :— 
 
 " My name is Arpa. I was once a scomer- of men. My 
 birth was of the thunderstorm, and the same element that 
 fulfilled me with strong flowing life, brought joy and regene- 
 racy to all nature. The fields smiled with new-found verdure . 
 
A VISION OF THE ARPA. 
 
 13 
 
 as, arrow-like, I speeded, by. The song of13ie doleful hoel was 
 stayed. Tlie tyrant sun kid his face in vaporous reils, and 
 men walked abroad without fear of his deadly javelins. 
 
 " The waterfowl fluttered to greet me, and the women with 
 vessels of earth and of brass upon their heads came reverently 
 to wet their feet in my flow. Then was I proud of my strength, 
 and scornful of weak men, as foolish youth is scornful. I tore 
 the frail canoe from its moorings by the bank, and swirled it 
 with eddying glee, and a Avild down-race for twenty miles of 
 travel ! I overflowed my banks and made havoc in the ryots' 
 fields. I hurled back the waters of weakling streams that 
 sought to join with mine, and made them recoil with their 
 gathered impurities upon the villages that had hoped never to 
 see the cast out filth again. My youth lasted with the rains ; 
 with the cold season began my quiet prime ; as the sun grew 
 stronger and the days longer, I saw that old age was come. 
 Day by day my strength diminished. The coward god of 
 - morning, shameless once more, smote silently, yet surely, suck- 
 ing the life-blood from me as a tiger drains its prey. My 
 fluent beauty turned to sluggish sand, in which the relics of 
 my life loitered and dribbled like little spillings from a broken 
 jug. Upon the forsaken, parched-up banks came forth coarse 
 weeds with yellow blossoms that glared on me mockingly, as in 
 mimicry of the eye of day. Rank blades sprang up where the 
 drowned grass had died, and, climbiug from pebble to pebble, a 
 noisome fungus tainted and beslimed every hollow with un- 
 wholesome green. Now it was the turn of weak men to mock 
 at me. How they overdid their advantage, you shall hear. 
 All the mischiefs of my deadly vapours be upon them and upon 
 you ; for you, also, are of the human kind. 
 
 " They made my banks and me the common cess-pit of their 
 villages. They sent their cattle and their dogs to churn up 
 and befoul my shallows. They arrested the feeble relics of my 
 stream with dunes of sand, and in the pools thus formed they 
 
14 IN THl! C. P. 
 
 dipped their polluted garments and laved their unclean limbs. 
 They dug holes in the sand for the sam.e end, till all about me 
 was riddled with pits and trenches, and my sickening humours, 
 thus confined and working to the surface, threw out foul crust- 
 ings and slimy water growths. I seemed to rot while I lived, 
 and the taint of my body cried aloud to heaven. The flame of 
 noon beating upon this scene of despair, raised up the elements 
 of disease in invisible mists, which at night sank down again 
 and hung about my dreary hollows. Thus I became noxious to 
 those who abused me, and for every seer of corruption cast 
 upon my dishonored home, I count the weakening of a score of 
 lives. How my fevers burn the poor mortals up, how their 
 spleens enlarge, and how they groan in pain ! I will not kill 
 you," continued the phantom, grinning fiendishly, " for you 
 have the power to prevent in the future the ills which I have 
 endured in the past ; but you shall suffer of me, that the 
 remembrance of your pains may urge you more instantly to 
 action. One word more before I end. Though I die to-day, 
 I shall rise to-morrow. My aged weakness shall be re-born in 
 youthful strength. When you hear the thunder thunder think 
 of the Arpa!" 
 
 So saying, the spectre vanished. I remained for a moment 
 or two stupefied. A wild dog, answering the cry of a jackal 
 which rang from the jungle on the opposite bank, uttered a 
 long and melancholy howl. At the sound, I recovered myself, 
 but only to fall back into a deep slumber which resembled a 
 second swoon. When I waked, the dawn was breaking behind 
 the Sentinel mountain. The yellow breadth of the bare river- 
 bed lay ghastly and lone before me. I shuddered ; and in that 
 instant was aware of a fire in my veins and a throbbing in 
 my brow, which let no doubt arise of their meaning. I was 
 smitten with a malarious fever, and the insulted Arpa waa 
 avenged ! 
 
A COTTON PRESS. 15 
 
 VIDHAEBA. 
 I. 
 
 The plains of Vidharba are bare to tlie sun ; 
 
 Its mosques and its temples are few and far ; 
 
 Its forts are of mud, and its low hills are 
 Straight and ungracious and swartly dun. 
 
 II. 
 
 Yet when the splendour of eve doth rest 
 Low on the ripples of wide jowar, 
 Glad are its people that nought can mar 
 
 All the magnificence poured in the west. 
 
 III. 
 Proudly they murmur, as rapt they gaze, 
 
 "There are no halls of the tired day-star 
 
 Half so ample as these halls are, 
 Nay, nor visions of rarer rays. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "What if their fortunes are bare and low ? — 
 They can look over the world afar — 
 The edge of the earth is their harbour-bar 
 
 And love like a boat to the bar can row." 
 
 A COTTON PRESS. 
 
 One sees a white-washed brick-building with an upper- 
 storey of corrugated zinc. A tall iron chimney is alongside, 
 and round about is a yard thickly strewn with net-like bags of 
 fluffy, snow-white fibre, and with oblong rectangular bales, 
 rigid in sacking and hoops. Carts are filing in with infinite 
 supplies of the snowy, fluffy fibre, and a pulley is constantly 
 hoisting up the bags to an opening in the zinc wall. 
 
16 IN THE C. P. 
 
 At regular intervals of short duration, mummy-like articles 
 are borne by staggering men out of the doorway of the brick 
 basement, and deposited in the yard. They are seen to be 
 bales of the rigid description aforesaid. An observation of 
 the concomitant disappearance of fluffy bundles at the upper- 
 storey, and appearance of slab-like bales at the lower-storey, 
 leads one to infer that the latter are the transformed and 
 shrouded bodies of the former. Plainly, the fleecy bales are 
 cruelly done to death by some monstrous and silent-working 
 instrument housed within this ugly building. One might 
 fancy it to be the execution chamber of the Government of 
 Terror, and these carts to be the tumbrils carrying the con- 
 demned. Ton dowdy bulk of cotton, which is being hustled 
 in at the window, looks like a dishevelled old woman huiTied 
 off to her fate ; and hark ! there is the.jangle of the bell which 
 announces the fulfilment of her doom. 
 
 Passing in at the basement doorway, one meets what is pre- 
 sumably the corpse of the lamented lady, neatly done up in 
 tat-putty and hooping. It looks so respectable and matter-of- 
 fact, that one is inclined to change one's view of the operation 
 conducted in the interior. One perceives that this is not a des- 
 troying, but a transforming workshop. Here, loose and strag- 
 gling personalities, with fibres too susceptible for exposure, are 
 at one stroke compacted and case-hardened, and furnished all 
 over with a comfortable callosity to protect them in their pas- 
 sage through the world. Gr-rash ! a noise as of the simultane- 
 ous breaking of a hundred champagne bottles, announces the 
 birth at once of this new idea, and of another compressed 
 cotton bale. One sees a strong iron door fly open in the side 
 of a massy column of that metal, which mounts from floor 
 to ceiling in the dusk of the bare room. The column is hol- 
 low, and on a flat bed in the interior of the base is revealed 
 a creamy, curdled mass of fibre, slowly solidifying into an 
 alabaster-like prism with liorizontal lamina?. The pressure 
 
A COTTON PEESS. 17 
 
 is from a great weiglit of metal, wMch slowly and noiselessly 
 comes down. The lowest plate is toothed and grooTed, and, as 
 it descends, dusky workmen, with the greatest activity, thrust 
 flexile lengths of hoop iron through the grooves, and bending 
 them round the bale, unite the ends in similar grooves in the 
 bed below ; others simultaneously clothe the sides of the bale 
 with sacking, and the steadily lowering pressure binds cotton, 
 sacking, hoops and all in one toughly-integumented whole. 
 The giant lifts his hand and releases the inanimate patient. 
 Moup-ld ! — the bale is rolled on the floor. See how solid, well- 
 knit and unimpressionable is this bulk of cotton, erst so 
 loosely coherent and so capable of soil. It may journey the 
 world through without a fleck of harm to its heart's core now ! 
 The giant's hand has been seen — where is the strong arm to 
 which it belongs ? The visitor ascends a wooden stair which 
 leads to the upper chamber of zinc. Rising into the dimly- 
 lighted space of this severely-simple loft, he begins to sneeze 
 and congh from the irritation of floating particles, fine as naeal 
 dust. This, the snowy flakes upon the floor, and the rumour 
 and quaking as of a mighty quern, make him think confusedly 
 of Frodi's Mill, and the milky way which flows from it. When 
 he sees more clearly, he is aware that there is no mill, only a 
 giant-elbow, like the elbow of Thor, raising itself slowly be- 
 tween two pillars of iron in the centre of the room. This huge 
 iron elbow is of the arm which controls the hand below. It is 
 lifting the hand in readiness for another crushing descent. The 
 victim is not long in coming. One of the fleecy bundles which 
 were seen in the yard is hoisted in at the window, rapidly 
 stripped of its confining network, and borne aloft like a pillar 
 of cloud by half-a-dozen active workmen, still cohering in a 
 single mass, but with flakelets dropping from it, like shorn 
 locks from the head of Eld. It is thrown into a trough at 
 the foot of the iron pillars. There it is furiously dismembered 
 by a crew of tormentors, who cram it piece-meal into a cavern 
 
18 IN THE C. P. 
 
 ■whicli the lifted hand of the giant discloses to view. As a 
 final insult, one of the band leaps into the cavity and tramples 
 on the quivering fragments. He nearly pays the penalty of 
 his life, for, with a hurried jangle of a bell, the hand begins to 
 descend. He has only just time enough to spring out into 
 the room. His companions, with winch and rack, close up 
 the side of the trap. Grimly and gradually the iron elbow 
 straightens down, till, cr-rash ! it bursts open the door St the 
 base of the shaft, and the visitor knows that another bale is 
 pressed and ready for the sacking. More wonderful than the 
 subjection of this giant to the services of commerce, is the 
 behaviour of those natives of India who lend and supplement 
 its action at the invitation of the same magician. The slow 
 and enthusiastic labourer of the tropics is transformed into 
 an active and noisily-eager servant of toil, with a cheerfulness 
 and endurance beyond the average. 
 
 The stimulus of payment hy the tale possesses him like a 
 mystic afflatus. As the coolies hurry to and fro amid the 
 clo ad-like masses of cotton, they look like impersonations of 
 the Maruts, at their task of driving the cows of Indra. The 
 man whose business it is to work the winch, springs upon it 
 like a tiger on its prey, and performs a series of bounds as the 
 handle revolves. Downstairs the ministrants of the pressed 
 bale are alert and handy. 
 
 They have learned the value of time. Commerce, while 
 working for its own ends, has done them this supreme favour. 
 
 Thus in many respects this plain, unbeautiful building is a 
 temple of wonder. To the seeing eye there is much also that 
 is beautiful in it ; and the beauty is not all of the present hour. 
 
A LEGEND OF POWNAE. 19 
 
 A LEGEND OF POWNAR. 
 
 I. 
 
 Beneath grey Pownar's rugged steep, 
 Where a famed wizard once did rule 
 
 The waters of the Dham o'erleap 
 A ledge of rock and form a pool 
 A deep, dark pool ! 
 
 II. 
 This wizard prince, the legend is, 
 
 By chipping off the tops of reeds 
 Could lop the heads of enemies. 
 
 And guard in peace his silvan meads — 
 His herd-cropped meads ! 
 
 III. 
 But Shah Kabir, of equal lore. 
 
 Advancing headless o'er the plain. 
 
 Outdid the mage, who left the shore 
 
 And ended in the pool his reign — 
 
 His strange, still reign ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 His drowned corse to the waters gave 
 A magic which might still endure. 
 
 But modern days less reverence have. 
 And generous virtues now are fewer, 
 Are sadly fewer ! 
 
 T. 
 Who e'er upon the pool's brink prest. 
 
 And prayed for basons bright and new, 
 Wherewith to entertain his guest, 
 
 And in the wave some rice grains threw- 
 With real faith threw. 
 
20 IN THE C. P. 
 
 VI. 
 
 To him the light of morn displayed, 
 The longed-for vessels on the bank ; 
 
 Which, when his kindly feast was made. 
 At dusk he brought, and down they sank — 
 In dark depths sank ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 One eve, a man of little mind 
 
 Kept back the bowls ; they turned to clay ! 
 They vanished into dust and wind ! 
 
 And since, the weird has passed away — 
 Has passed away ! 
 
 BY THE RIVER. 
 
 It comes with a wide and shallow flow round a bend of the 
 brown and steeply-graded shore, which gives it a cousinly 
 likeness to most of the rivers in these parts. Reefs of ashen 
 grey rocks run across and raise a fretful bar to its passage ; 
 but it soon recovers its quiet temper, and, as in atonement for 
 that momentary ruffling, ofiers a tribute of green rushes on 
 the hither side of each ridge. Lower down, the rocky bed 
 falls sheer in the middle to a depth of some twenty feet, leav- 
 ino- perpendicular walls on each side ; and as the lines of 
 direction of the nearest reefs converge upon this depression, 
 the effect is like that of a weir and lock, the lock being below 
 the weir. Only the sluice-gates of this lock are for ever open, 
 and the water which has hurled and glistened down the slopes 
 of the weir tumbles noisily into the pitfall which the lock has 
 prepared for it, and a fine spray goes up from the fall into the 
 sunny air. Recovering from its surprise, the calm-tempered 
 river dimples out between the lessening bluffs, and finds again 
 its old leisurely flow beside the silt-banks further down. Pert 
 
BY THE KI7ER. 21 
 
 littlie water-birds wag their tails over its downfall, and ply 
 their twinkling legs over the shining juts of the weir. There 
 is a dreamy thunder and doze about the dewy verge of it 
 which lures the wanderer to linger by the fall, and gaze for- 
 getfully on the cool sheen of the shooting river. Over him 
 passes the soft light of the setting sun, and strikes silvery 
 gleams from the blue breadth of the upper stream, while, 
 below, there are shadows on the water from the banks which 
 are in shade. On one of these banks, but a little removed 
 from the scarp, and standing piously on a rocky eminence 
 which gives it a wide command, is a Hindoo temple of 
 deserted aspect and somewhat blackened by age. 
 
 There is no sign of priest or worshipper about it, not even a 
 splash of Vermillion to betoken a peasant's regard. The rocks 
 below are preferred in sacredness, for here we find a boulder 
 bedaubed with pious pigments and ringed with dedicate toys 
 and flowers. One is at a loss, at first, to understand why the 
 temple is so neglected, for it is a handsome and far-seen build- 
 ing. A glance up-stream reveals a something which may have 
 had power to produce the change. About a thousand paces 
 off, a railway bridge spans the current. The iron high- way, 
 it seems, is the road now followed ; and pilgrims and travellers 
 no longer halt at the river ford and offer worship in the tem- 
 ple as they rest. They are hurried past to other scenes and 
 other shrines. The priest long ago went his way, because his 
 revenues had failed. 
 
 Thus the temple is become merely a picturesque object in 
 the scenery. Looking at it contemplatively under the dreamy 
 influence of the resounding weir, many apposite reflections are 
 certain to accrue to the philosophic idler. Among these will 
 probably be the thought that the abandoned fortune of th^ 
 temple is typical of what occurs to most religions when the 
 highway of life is made easier by material means. People 
 pass by and leave the old faith standing. When the ways 
 
22 IN THE C. P. 
 
 of existence were hard and rugged, and a turn in the path" 
 might bring a tiger or a robber to the fore, they were keen 
 to court the favour of a supernatural power, who might help 
 them, kindly along. Their imaginations pictured the universe 
 as a projection on a large scale of the dangers and troubles 
 which beset their little journeys through the wild ; and the 
 small reasoning power which they brought to bear upon 
 the scheme of creation as thus conceived of, taught them 
 that so great a coil could only be the result of a warfare 
 between evil and its opposite. They, therefore, worshipped 
 the emblem of the good power ; and either propitiated the evil 
 power with deprecatory offerings, or went so far as to worship 
 him, as the stronger power of the two. By and by, they 
 found that man's toil and his capacity for combining men and 
 things in serviceable relationships, gave him command over 
 the difficulties of the way, and made their progress comfort- 
 able, and even luxurious. "When this grew to be so, their 
 ideas of the order of the universe changed also. It was, 
 indeed, an order, not a chaos ; so orderly as to suggest a 
 machine-like progress, and to negative the idea of any external 
 interference. Thus JBgyptian, Greek, Roman, and Scandi- 
 navian theologies passed into picturesque myths ; and thus 
 the Christian religion, which rose from the ruined fall of all 
 these, when the world was again mixed with barbarism and 
 the old terrors revived, seems in its turn to be passing. Only 
 in India do the old beliefs cling ; and that is because the 
 conditions of life are, on the whole, little changed, for the 
 mass of the people. The times are more secure, but life is stUl 
 wretchedly hard. 
 
 When a railroad is set down among them, then indeed the 
 power of men over nature, in at least one point of contact, is 
 appreciated to the detriment of the roadside shrine ; but there 
 are plenty of miseries left to make prayer to the terrible 
 Unseen a daily exercise. When this country shall grow rich, 
 
AT GIRTIB. ■ 23 
 
 then its old creeds, too, will become but picturesque studies, 
 and cease to liave vital force. But the minds tbat bave shaken 
 off their early superstitions are not at rest, therefore. The 
 disposition to ask — ^Why ? is strong as ever, and the solution 
 is far off. To the physical distresses of early social life suc- 
 ceed the mental distresses of a complex and cultivated 
 civilization. Will the terrors of this state, also, develop a 
 new religion to absorb the spiritual cravings of the world ? 
 
 AT GIRUR. 
 
 This is the holy hill of Sheik Fareed. 
 
 He watched one morn upon its haggard brow. 
 
 Gazing from Girur towards Hinganghat, 
 
 Whence much trade pours ; and saw a packman pass, 
 
 And begged for alms. The pert knave mocked at him 
 
 And had gone by, but that the hermit prayed 
 
 That he would tell him what those sacks contained 
 
 The which his jingling bullocks gaily bore — 
 
 " Stones !" scoffed the churl ; whereat all quietly, 
 
 The Sheik said, " Sooth — They are but worthless stones !" 
 
 And all the sacks on all the bullocks burst, 
 
 And dinged with doleful rattle to the ground ! 
 
 There had been spices in them — ^betelnut, 
 
 Nutmegs and pan, and many a costly clove, 
 
 But all were made as flint and flaked the ground ! 
 
 Nor long the trader wavered, but his head 
 
 Plumb, like a stone, between the saint's feet dropped, 
 
 And prone he prayed and grovelled. Then my lord 
 
 Took pity on the humbled, sinful man. 
 
 And said — " O blind one, now dost thou discern 
 
 The power of God — ^Go, fill thy sacks with leaves, 
 
 And learn that hermit's will has heavenly stress." _ 
 
 No sooner said than heeded, and the trees. 
 
24 
 
 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Stripped leafless, soon bestowed the strained bags full. 
 As the last bullock staggered to his feet, 
 Behold a wonder baulked him, for the leaves 
 Turned gold, and dribble, drip, from every rent 
 Pattered a gleaming shower of broad mohurs ! 
 Bismillah ! how the huckster brightened up ! 
 They say he turned a saint, and left his bones 
 On Girur — Well, amen, and peace to him ! — 
 The hillside grins his heir in curious stones. 
 
 SWEVBNS. 
 
 Now that the w^ells are full, that the ground is carpeted with 
 green, that the trees are alive, that the air is moist and cool, 
 it is difficult to look back on a time not far past when all this 
 was otherwise, and not deem it to have been a dream. Can it 
 be that this mild plain, that those placid hills were once in- 
 exorable as iron and terrible as the grave ? Was there a 
 drought in this land flowing with w^ater ? Did the wind die 
 like the breaking of a silver wire in the fierce strain of noon- 
 day? 
 
 This is a volcanic country. The volcanoes are dead, but the 
 crust they have left is liable to weird changes. The crater of 
 Kilauea, in the Sandwich Islands, is a still, grey plain by day, 
 bordered with luxuriant vegetation; but, at night, every 
 fissure is a flam.e, and it glows like a huge melting pot in a 
 dark laboratory. If it be not a dream, the one season that 
 is lately gone from here was like the night of Kilauea. In 
 the ballad of the weird lady — 
 The Bwevens came up round Harold the Earl, like motes in the sonnes beam. 
 
 Like motes in the sunbeam. Whether shaped by the weird 
 lady or no, here are two motes which I remember to have seen 
 in the light of May. Siueven the first. — An avenue of stunted 
 
swevens. 25 
 
 trees, whose burnt leaves rustle in the dry breath of evening. 
 A roadway ruined by drought, loose stones mingling with the 
 powdery dust. The weird twilight shows, on the one side, 
 the parapet of a well, and, on the other, a small, mean build- 
 ing of brick and plaster, on the front of which is a rude cross. 
 The well is black and dry, and the building deserted and fall- 
 ing to decay. One wonders how many people were stifled to 
 death in that little chapel ere it was abandoned. Further on, 
 there are huts rudely put together with mats and bamboos. 
 They seem deserted. A few children are playing about, but 
 there is no stir, nor voice of woman-kind. The bare ground 
 slopes upward to the right, and on the breast of the rise is seen 
 that most melancholy of sights — an empty bungalow with the 
 thatch fallen mangy, and the white-wash peeling from the 
 walls. At a turn of the road, the native official in charge of 
 this desolate place presents himself, and makes report of the 
 situation. The town is built upon a knoll of basalt, and there 
 is no good water to be got. They have delved and delved 
 in vain. People have taken to drinking of the foul water 
 of the shrunken stream which creeps round the base of the 
 knoll, and sickness is abroad. He leads the way to the only 
 green spot in the place, the garden of a gosain, laid out with 
 shrubs of lime and orange. A servant is carefully m.oisten- 
 ing the roots of these with a muddy liquid trawled from the 
 bottom of a deep shaft, built round with masonry. The garden 
 lies on a kind of terrace, below which, at a fall of some twelve 
 feet, the ground slopes away towards the stream. At the base 
 of the scarp the slope is pierced by five or six wells. Round 
 the mouths of these are seated clusters of women in attentive 
 silence. Their silence and the cords they hold in their hands 
 give them the air of anglers waiting for a bite. A nearer view 
 shows that the cords are attached to vessels of brass, and that 
 they seek, by patient waiting on the dribbling springs which 
 issue from fissures in the rock, to get these vessels filled. A 
 
26 IN THE C. P. 
 
 weary -waiting it is. Farther down the slope, men are drilling 
 the rock with steel tipped bars, and shattering it with qnarry 
 hammers in an almost vain battle with the niggard earth for 
 the liquid treasures she hides in her crannies. Even as they 
 labour, women press about them with water vessels and suffer not 
 a drop to be lost. An indescribable melancholy is spread abroad 
 by these scenes. The iron ground all aglow from the glare of 
 the afternoon, sends up a sickening fume. Over the town 
 comes that choking, musty breath of exhausted day which 
 exhales like a pest from every sunbaked hamlet in the land. 
 It is like the air of a crater. Away, the place is accursed ! 
 
 Is not this a " grisly sweven ?" And the second is like 
 unto it. Sweven the second. — The blaze of midday is on the 
 hills. They are flat-browed, steep-sided hills covered with long 
 coarse grass, and studded with gaunt- limbed trees. The boughs 
 of these are straggling, and the sparse foliage gives but little 
 shade. Here and there, a bare white bole with wan leafless 
 branches, stands like a burnt-out candelabrum or a memento 
 mori skeleton in a company of cynics. The bleached herbage 
 forms a strange grey carpet which throws up the glare and 
 glistens far away between the tree-stems. Thickly strewn in 
 it are boulders of black basalt, rusty-hued pebbles, and split no- 
 dules of white quartz. The pebbles seem to be trying to crowd 
 the grass out ; and on the side of every steep ravine they gain 
 their end, and climbing or descent is hard indeed. As the 
 stones rattle down, a startled panther bounds up the opposite 
 acclivity, and is lost to sight in an instant. He has been to look 
 for water at the bottom of this stony glen. There is but a foul 
 puddle where the last issue of the spring ebbed away. By the 
 side of it is the skeleton of a bufEalo. Nowhere in this rocky 
 wilderness is there any fount of water to be found. The heat 
 is intense, the constant cooing of the omnipresent dove, the 
 chatter of the jay, the distant jarring note of the peacock, are 
 sounds that by their monotonous repetition seem to make the 
 
'sans souci." 27 
 
 solitude more bitter. The acid, mordant juice of the berries 
 Tvhich haug in yellow clusters on the oulah tree, relieves the 
 parched mouth for a time. Shortly, the burning thirst returns. 
 With delight the exhausted traveller hails the sight of a cluster 
 of huts, standing on a smooth bit of open ground which the 
 descent of a gully reveals. He tastes in imagination the joy 
 of a draught of milk. Alas, the huts are empty ! The hamlet 
 is deserted. The herdsfolk who inhabited them have gone 
 northward, with their cattle, in search of pasture. In one of 
 the cabins of the rancha the traveller sinks to sleep, and dreams 
 that he is horribly prisoned in the great crater of the isle 
 of Hila. 
 
 "SANS SOUCI." 
 
 While the peasant sows and the fair breeze blows 
 
 And cloudlets fleck the blue, 
 With the antlers near of a slaughtered deer 
 
 And a flask of amber brew ; 
 Let my limbs be laid in a mango's shade 
 
 Or under the languid gleam 
 Which entangled plays 'mid the clasping sprays 
 
 Of a fairy-fingered Neem. 
 II. 
 
 Not a care can float o'er the magic moat 
 
 Which the bright day round me flings, 
 Nor a d&h will come with its weary sum 
 
 Of official questionings ; 
 Not a rogue will pray for place or pay, 
 
 Nor a nasal reader drone 
 Of a thief untried or a dog that died, 
 
 Or a witch with a magic stone. 
 
28 IN THE C. P. 
 
 III. 
 
 For the courts are far, and the bold sowar, 
 
 Though he ride like a Deloraine, 
 Will not be espied on the swart hill-side 
 
 Till morning breaks again ; 
 And the whispering glee of the siris tree 
 
 Repeats that in yon black tarn. 
 Where the choked stream states, and the pad's hoof fails, 
 
 Fate has toppled my Misl-lehwan ! 
 
 THROUGH TREASURE-TOWN TO TREASURE ISLE. 
 
 It is called, they say, the Treasure- Town because, in old 
 days, a Jcumaishdar lived here, and the Governm.ent dues flowed 
 into a treasury which was under his supervision. It is still a 
 large town, though not so noteworthy for treasure as formerly. 
 It has new features not belonging to those days of ill-employed 
 lucre — -pucca drains, a roofed market annotated on the brow 
 with its builder's name and its cost in rupees, a post ofiBce like 
 a geometrical puzzle, and a serai that may be mistaken for the 
 court-yard of a gothic castle. Also, a fort converted to a novel 
 purpose, that of keeping in its garrison as prisoners from the 
 world, instead of keeping out the world from its garrison. In- 
 side the high and narrow archway of red stone whose spiked 
 wooden doors fold back against a weathered bastion, on the one 
 side, and a sallow curtain- wall on the other, appear the blue 
 uniform of a turnkey, the tiled roof of a work-shed, and three 
 plantain shrubs set arow to please the jailor's eye. From the 
 battlements, one sees far and wide over a level plain studded 
 with trees and broken in places by a few abruptly rising hills. 
 A long, red road runs straightly through the midst. Along this 
 road we had come — a party of pilgrims in search of the pictur- 
 esque, and doing our pilgrimage, so far as there was carriage 
 way, in a carriage, Hitherto the picturesqueness had been small 
 
THROUGH TREASURE-TOWN TO TREASURE ISLE. 29 
 
 —nothing more than what the vista of green boughs along the 
 red track, with the blue of the sky above them and the fainter 
 blue of the linseed blossom gleaming from the fields beneath, 
 afforded. But at one place we had reached a broad river, or 
 rather the bed of a broad river, for the stream had dwindled to 
 a narrow channel, leaving tracts of white sand on each side of 
 it. There had not been much picturesqueness in this alone, but 
 a freak of nature had cast up certain rocks of an ashen hue in 
 a confused pile amid the sand, and suffered certain grasses to 
 wave soothingly in the crevices ; and on the precipitous bank 
 of the further shore the art of man had raised a bell-roofed 
 temple. So old and musty-dark was it, that the people of these 
 parts averred it to be the work of devs. The river slipped over 
 its sandy shoals in such a quiet fashion, that it was only when 
 the ferry boat received us that we were conscious of its being 
 there. Even then, our progress was so equable and so void of 
 disturbance that one might have deemed it a river of sleep, 
 wherein the submerged sand-dunes were fleeting dreams. A 
 long train of grain-carts, red from the road, came down 
 over the glistening shore and drove axle deep into the water. 
 Funereal dongas, in pairs, slipped before and behind each laden 
 vehicle, and shipped it from bank to bank, as the Egyptian 
 water-hearses carried the dead of yore. But the shouting of 
 the carters was anything but dolorous. Nor was there ought 
 suggestive of Charon's prototype about the toll-taker. Perhaps 
 the smeared fakir who stood beside him and begged, with a grin 
 worthy of Grimaldi, for money to bear him on a pilgrimage longer 
 than ours, might have stood for the character. Let not the 
 unbroken file of water-carriers be forgotten — women in blue 
 saris with bright brass vessels on their heads, passing up and 
 down from the town that lay behind the temple, and uncon- 
 sciously illustrating the deep disregard for sanitary rules 
 which pervades the native mind. They filled their gunds 
 just below the washing slabs, wlierefrom the sound of sorely 
 
30 IN THE C. P. 
 
 threshed garments came mixed, with the chatter of the laund- 
 resses. Such considerations as these, however, are apt to mar 
 one's memory of the picture ; and as our chief business was with 
 the picturesque, I leave them, and pass beyond Treasure-Town 
 towards the Isle of Treasure. The ceaseless tinkle of bullock 
 bells, the dusty film thrown into the air by the sluggish files of 
 rice-laden carts, came with us monotonously while the red road 
 lasted. A weight of drowsiness seemed to rest upon bullocks, 
 bells, and oartmen all. The bells jangled slowly, the bullocks 
 plodded musingly, and the drivers barely roused themselves 
 from a lotus-dream to prod their cattle from the way. As the 
 shimjig palas trees of the jungle closed in upon the besmirched 
 mangoes of the avenue, we welcomed our approach to the wild. 
 The rest of our journey was over stony tracks, accessible only 
 to the tanga, the tonjon, and the elephant. Splendid mohwa 
 trees lent a dignity to the surrounding scrub, and every village 
 we happened on possessed a pride of mango, tamarind or peepul 
 boughs. Mostly Gond villages, distinguished for well-leeped 
 walls, fenced enclosures, and ngly women. In their neigh- 
 bourhood, closely-packed sugarcanes thrust their tufted heads 
 over bamboo palings ; and rice-fields, white with stubble, played 
 cross purposes with patches of wheat. Now and again, we 
 caught the distant gleam of a lake or jheel, or a flock of 
 white paddy birds told of its presence. The tanga had a bad 
 time of it, but the tonjon and the elephant went along at a 
 goodly pace. The whinnying mustangs of the malguzars fright- 
 ened the elephant into a faster swing ; and the ruck of the 
 village-folk got winded, or dropped their shoes in vain pursuit. 
 In this country of tanks, the talk was of tanks ; and breathless 
 patels shouted their grievances about embankments. One man 
 proposed to submerge a dozen acres as coolly as if he were 
 talking of watering a cabbage bed. More is expected of a 
 person riding upon an elephant than of a horseman ; in the 
 same way that the latter is preferred in salutation to a pedes- 
 
THEOUGH TREASTJKE-TOWN TO TEEASURE ISLE. 31 
 
 trian. If he cannot scatter gold, lie should scatter silver ; if he 
 cannot scatter silver, he should scatter flowers. Having 
 neither gold, silver, nor flowers, we scattered fair speeches. 
 The people seemed grateful. They hada surprise for us. What 
 appeared to he the rooky spur of one of the abrupt hills which 
 are grouped picturesquely about the country, proved to be the 
 bund of a tank. Climbing it, we saw before us a wide sheet 
 of water, blue as the heavens, and gently ruffled by the 
 breeze into tiny waves which plashed musically against the 
 stones of the embankment. The sweep of the further shore 
 was dark with trees, save for a narrow band of withered 
 grass at the water's edge which shone like yellow sand. The 
 efEect of the view upon our spirits was as that of the sea upon 
 a traveller tired of the downs. 
 
 We could have sat upon the bund for hours. But not yet 
 was the time of rest.' By more rugged hills, displaying that 
 amphitheatric tendency which is so favourable to the forma- 
 tion [of lakes, and over whose wooded sides were scattered 
 certain leafless trees, whose silvery rinds showed here and there 
 like grey hairs in a shaggy head, we came at length to the glade 
 where our camp was pitched. A few paces from the tents was 
 a second surprise — another and a larger lake, curiously hem- 
 med in from observation (till the observer was close upon it) 
 by the rocky ridges which sloped down to its margin. These 
 ridges were divided into individual bluffs and promontories, so 
 distinct and yet similar in feature as to have won the local name 
 of the " Seven Sisters and their little Brother.'' The jungle 
 with which they were clad came down to the water's edge, 
 without any intervening belt of sand or sward. The water was 
 smooth as glass. About the centre was a small rocky island, 
 with half-a-dozen trees upon it. At the nearer end, the eldest 
 of the sisters rose to a tall peak, the equal curves of whose 
 opposite slopes gave it a volcanic appearance, which the foliage 
 from base to submit belied. A grassy bank, shadowed with 
 
32 IN THE C. P. 
 
 tamarind, peepul, and anjan trees, and dominated by the tagod- 
 like heads of curving palms, ran from the foot of this peak to the 
 shore on which we stood, but was separated from, us by the 
 overflow of a low weir of russet coloured boulders. In the 
 centre of this was a rude flood-gate in the form of an arch. 
 The escaping water glistened over the stones and made a 
 pleasant murmur. Some dhimars were setting lines near the 
 sluice and binding dongas together, against the contingency 
 of our going afloat. We at once determined upon three 
 things ; firstly, to be industriously idle upon the shaded bund; 
 secondly, to do what we could in the way of sketching the 
 scene with pencil or pen ; thirdly, to go afloat on dongas, 
 and paddle round the Isle of Treasure. 
 
 It is not for me to describe the progress of being indus- 
 triously idle. It is too well known. I have only to say that the 
 margin of the lake afforded special advantages for the pursuit. 
 The air was mild and soothing ; the broad silver bosom of the 
 talao suggested the two ideas of expansion and quiet which are 
 necessary to secure mental repose ; the fishes were given to 
 occasional leaping ; and the voice of the dove was heard in the 
 woods. If there was any interruption, it was from a silver- 
 haired monkey biting at palas leaves behind the bank, or from 
 the slightly strident cry of the coolen. As for the sketching, 
 it went off fairly enough, but for the tendency to leave off doing 
 anything at all. Personally, I have no scruples about doing 
 nothing ; my policy in holiday times being one of masterly 
 inactivity. If there were more faith abroad in the world, the 
 profit, I think, to be derived from passivity would not be so 
 underrated as it is. People inhale fresh air with a ready 
 enough perception of the good it does them, but they rarely 
 seem to appreciate the fact that the inhaling of scenery by 
 the eye is equally beneficial. The swallowing of ozone is a 
 good thing, but the absorption into the memory of grateful 
 images, is surely as good, if not better. By the one act, the 
 
THROtraH TEEASUEE-TOWN TO TREASURE ISLE. 33 
 
 body is fortified against diseases, by tbe other, the mind is 
 fortified against irritation. Whenever, for example, I am in 
 a bad tem.per, I shall project upon my retina the memory-pic- 
 ture I possess of Nowagaun Lake, and the sedative efEect will 
 be like that of a whiff of Virginia. Leaving philosophies of 
 this kind for the third act in our resolves, it rem.ains to be told 
 that when the slanting rays of afternoon permitted, we got 
 on board the miniature Castalia, formed for us by the dhimars 
 out of two dug-outs and a charpoy. We were slowly paddled 
 across the lake. The Seven Sisters shone in new colours — 
 purple on the shadowy side, and green and brown in the sink- 
 ing light. Before our double keel, silver-scaled fishes scudded 
 in diverging shoals. They apparently used the water as a 
 spring cushion for their flexed tails. As we drew near' the 
 little islet which has gained its name (Mai doongri) from a 
 traditionary deposit of treasure there by the benefactor of 
 mankind who made the talao, grave water-birds, plumaged 
 in black and in white, flaunted slowly off it, and a snake-bird 
 came rapidly round a corner upon us, like a submerged tor- 
 pedo-launch with only a funnel neck showing above the wave. 
 The islet was apparently a cairn of granitic boulders, resting 
 on the top of a submerged hill. Within a short distance of it, 
 there stood up from the water the bare tops of two dead teak 
 trees, whose roots were fixed far below in the soil where they 
 had grown. The only connection with the past which could 
 console them in their forlorn condition, was the perching of 
 birds upon their boughs. The sun sank behind the hills ; and 
 as the glow died out of the sky, a reflected silver of twilight 
 seemed to shine from the lake into the heavens, and a ghostly 
 mist crept along the shore. The beacon-light upon the land- 
 ing stage was happily suggestive of the camp fire. 
 
34 IN THE C. P. 
 
 THE ISLE OF TREASURE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Two fishermen's dongas lashed together, 
 Eiye dusky Gonds for a paddling crew — 
 And over the lake in the clear cold weather 
 To the Isle of Treasure, we softly drew. 
 
 ii. 
 Seven sister hills and a rugged brother, 
 Wimpled in green and stoled in brown, 
 Smiled each to each as the mere, their mother. 
 Rippled her brow with a flying frown, 
 
 III. 
 Bright fishes sprang from the wave in wonder. 
 Bright sunbirds glanced in the woodland screen ; 
 And stark and bare the still deeps under 
 The boughs of trees long drowned were seen. 
 
 IV. 
 
 No gold was there in the isle of Treasure 
 No silver hoard in its shade found we — 
 But a calm delight in the lake's wide leisure 
 And two white cranes on an Imlee tree. 
 
 THE GAULIS. 
 
 Wandering among the jagged spurs of the Satpura range, 
 where the trap-plateau becomes the gathering-ground of the 
 streams which feed the Godavery, the dry and dusty traveller 
 comes often upon a curious clearing. The flat back of one of 
 the basaltic monsters which lie off what may be called the 
 coasts of the main rocky ridges, is worn as bare and hard as 
 that of a river-horse. The trees which skirt the clearing are 
 stript of leaves. There is a thin layer of compost over the 
 ground. Comminuted as fine as powder, it yet bears no her- 
 
THE GAULIS. 35 
 
 bage ; and the visible dint of hoofs explains at once its origin 
 and its barrenness. At the first glance, one takes the clearing 
 to have been the halting place, during the monsoon, of a band 
 of those bold-mannered masters of pack bullocks and high- 
 hooded wives, who go by the name of Bunjaras. A second 
 glance shows that, on the further border, there are permanent 
 structures which these wanderers never erect — a medley of 
 thatched huts with pens attached. The walls of the huts are 
 merely sticks and wattle : and the pens are §imply rectangular 
 dispositions of posts and logs, 
 
 A few scantily-clad and rough-featured women and children 
 are about the premises. One recognizes a Gauli "heti" or 
 hamlet. 
 
 Who the Gaulis originally were, and whether the pastoral 
 people who now bear their name are descendants of the half- 
 mythical clan who indulged the whims of the infant Krishna, 
 it is not the place here to inquire. The Gaulis of to-day keep 
 no memories of their origin, and are content to live and thrive 
 as breeders of cattle and dealers in dairy produce. A sketch 
 of their way of dealing with their stock may not be uninter- 
 esting. 
 
 Supposing it to be evening when the traveller reaches the 
 " heti," he will find the pens empty, perhaps, as described. 
 The buffaloes have started for the depths of the forest, and 
 the kine have not yet returned. On the trampled mud margin 
 of a streamlet not far fro'm the eminence, he meets the herd 
 of cows loitering homewards. They are shapely and well-knit 
 animals, though not distinguished for size. The prevailing 
 colour is white, with hpre and there a dun. A Gauli, with a 
 stick in his hand and a coarse blanket round his shoulders, 
 saunters in the rear. The multitudinous tinkle of their bells 
 is heard far down the paths of the jungle, Not many paces 
 onward, he comes upon the out-going drove of buffaloes. The 
 sight of these ponderous specimens of the familiar beast of 
 
36 IN THE C. P. 
 
 burden of the country fills him with a mingled sense of admir- 
 ation and of absurdity. Their huge chests, their long, recurved 
 horns, their length of back and strength of limb, excite hia 
 wonder and approbation ; but the awkward set of the neck, the 
 slow, rolling gait which gives continual suggestion of going 
 down hill; and the vacant look of the pale-hued eye set in the 
 dark hide, are provokingly laughable. It would be no laugh- 
 ing matter, however, to bear the brunt of an attack from any 
 one of these apparently mild monsters. They follow now the 
 Gauli who has charge of them as quietly as goats do the goat- 
 herd, but woe to the man or beast who lays violent hold on that 
 herdsman ! They have been known to tram.ple under their 
 hoofs both bipeds and quadrupeds who offended in this way. 
 Cows, lik« sheep, will front a foe ; but they do so tremblingly, 
 and not in the confidence of valour, as do these clumsy cousins 
 of the bison. Wrapped in his blanket, their attendant sleeps 
 by night on the ground in the heart of the forest, fearless of 
 prowling tigers or panthers. The buffaloes graze in a circle 
 round him ; and when the pasture of the spot is exhausted, the 
 bull who leads the herd arouses the slumberer with a thrust of 
 his snout. The night is their grazing time, because, with all 
 their seeming toughness of hide, they are extremely sensitive 
 to the attacks of certain insects which swarm by day ; and they 
 are rarely sent abroad at noon without an armadillo coat of 
 cowdung from neck to rump. Returning to the "heti," the (^ 
 traveller makes inquiries as to the uses of the respective herds. 
 He is astonished to learn that the buffaloes supply the dairy, 
 and the cows are kept only for breeding purposes. He is in 
 the rearing- ground of the famous " Berari " bullocks, whose 
 speed and endurance as draught cattle for the light cart of 
 the country are prized wherever they are known. The bull- 
 calves are early separated from their dams, and driven, as soon 
 as they can travel, to one of the weekly marts near the line oi 
 railway. There they fetch prices ranging from Rs. 30 to 
 
THE GAULIS. 37 
 
 Rs. 50 a pair, if they are -weanlings, and from Rs. 70 to 
 Rs. 150 a pair if they are full grown. The buffaloes are pro- 
 ductive of yet more profit. It is from these secluded and 
 undomestic dairy farms that Bombay draws miich of its 
 supply of ghee, and not a little batter also. The agents of 
 wealthy ghee-dealers inhabiting towns upon the railway, 
 have their posts in this and that " heti," where they collect 
 quantities of buffalo-butter, clarify it in large cauldrons, 
 and store it in barrels, for transmission to head-quarters. 
 Wooden trunks are used for the transport of the butter 
 upon the backs of bullocks, over roads impassable by carts. 
 Some of it is packed in baskets, and sent in its natural 
 sta;te to Bombay. There, if it has not turned rancid on the 
 way, it is whipped up with water and tinted with saffron, until it 
 assumes the consistency and appearance of cow's butter. Thus 
 the progress of civilization in rear of the iron horse has linked 
 the plain dealings of this forest people with the chicanery of 
 cities. Unconscious of such tangled results, they quietly pros- 
 per ; having only two enemies to fear, the aggressive cultivator 
 and the zealous forest conservator. There are limits to the 
 advance of the former, who only pushes his plough where the 
 crumbled trap has accumulated in the nooks and hollows of the 
 barren hill ; but the latter holds ever over their heads the sword- 
 like threat of exclusion for their cattle from every slope or glade 
 where a teak sapling is rooted.* There are stories among the 
 
 * The GaiuJis maintaiii that their herds do little damage to trees ; but a 
 glance round the plateau on which a "heti" is perched will refute their argu- 
 ments. It is true that the trees in the neighbourhood of the hamlet are com- 
 monly of the little valuable palas Mnd ; but there are sweeter leaves than this 
 shrub bears in the forest. In the months of May and June the herdsman has 
 difficulty in finding bladelets of any nourishment for his cattle under the 
 longest grass tufts in the inner-moat recesses of the hills ; and binola and 
 linseed cake, alone, will not keep them in vigour. Most owners tide it over 
 with the loss of a beast or two, whom weakness has brought to their knees. 
 Once fallen thus, and caught where it lies by the chills and damp of the mon- 
 soon, an animal rarely rises again. 
 
38 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Gaillis of times of trial, when some opinionatiTe local officer 
 shut up the available jungles in the dryest months of the year, 
 and the starved beasts died by scores : and they foolishly fear 
 that the like disaster may some day again befall them. But 
 the better-informed can tell them that their alarm is ground- 
 less; that the plentiful production of good cattle and good 
 ghee is as much an administrative end as the conservancy of 
 teak poles. 
 
 The two objects can be pursued together : the cattle beiag 
 kept to the rugged, but grass-clad uplands, and the te^k nur- 
 series to the lower glades and jheels. Climbing to the table- 
 like summit of a neighbouring ridge, to gain a far-stretching 
 view over reserved woodland to where gleam the white bun- 
 galows by the railway, the traveller consoles himself with this 
 thought. All the varied green of the forest is flecked with 
 the patches of silvery bronze, where the frayed and banner-like 
 leaves of the teak hang in faded magnificence on their light 
 boughs. In the sparse openings in this wide expanse of foli- 
 age, herds of cattle are quietly grazing. 
 
 ON TOUR. 
 
 I. 
 FoETH we fare at break of" day — 
 All the air is cold and grey — 
 
 n. 
 Scored and rutted with the rain 
 The Bombay road divides the plain ! 
 
 III. 
 Monkeys in the tope-trees squatted 
 Cross themselves like priests besotted ! 
 
ON TOUE. 39 
 
 lY. 
 
 Naked Braliinins cower and shudder — 
 " Save Tis from the cold Nerbudda !" 
 
 V. 
 Rigid is the peepul tree 
 And still as frost the fine imlee ! 
 
 Tl. 
 " Come, friend !" the fingered m.angoes wave- 
 And sunlight strikes the Mahadev ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 "Now which way lies this squat Ponri 
 Where our steeds may baited be ? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Where our camels couch, and where 
 Our well-pitched tents in order are ? " 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Kotwal through the brush- wood springs 
 And us to a bageecha brings. 
 
 X. 
 
 Two-poled tent and shamiyana, 
 Pal and small bawarcM-Jchana ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Smart sipahis, tired hhulassies, 
 Half-a-dozen spry chuprassies ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Atta, dal, and goor for sale 
 Minded by a baniya pale — 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Dhers with eggs and (both legs lathered) 
 Murgis plucked and murgis feathered ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And heard with plaintive bleat afar, 
 A balcri from the Malguzar ! 
 
40 IN THE C. P. 
 
 OPENING A BRIDGE. 
 
 An iron girder-bridge of two spans, resting on liigli piers 
 of sandstone, a coat of glowing red paint over the metal 
 trusses and tie-beams, and a tinge of yellow running through 
 the grey of the masonry. Underneath, is a shallow and murky 
 stream, inertly feeling its way between mudbanks, deserted 
 even. of wader-birds, and disturbed only a couple of naked 
 coolies in the act of proving that dirty water washes clean. 
 On each hand stretches a sparsely-cultivated country, where 
 one or two trees, some straggling shoots of green palas and 
 patches of stunted but ripening corn, faintly assert the presence 
 of life amid an otherwise death-like waste. A noon-day glare 
 and glow dwells wrothly on the bare plain, and gives a fiery 
 life to the red girders. 
 
 The bridge, in this circumstance of heat and bareness, does 
 not seem at home ; it looks uncomfortably conscious of its 
 strangeness to the surroundings. Were it rid of its too con- 
 spicuous festal jerkin of scarlet, it might perhaps be more 
 easy ; but it has no resource save to lie sullenly in the shine, 
 like a burly craftsman whom his friends have befooled into 
 uniform and a trade's holiday upon a barren moor. In the 
 centre of the iron way stands a lady with a long-handled ham- 
 mer in her hand. 
 
 The bridge which crosses Giall's stream is guarded, one 
 knows, by an armed warderess, who questions the ghosts as 
 they go down to Hela's realm. The country here is sad and 
 sere enough to be the high road to that melancholy region ; 
 but these arches which span the water are not of gold, and 
 the figures which throng the road- way have a gay and mun- 
 dane air about them, and step with a weighty step. The 
 armed lady strikes a wooden wedge with her hammer, driving 
 it to its function of firmly fixing a rail in its iron cradle; 
 the loiterers on the bridge step aside into the safe recesses 
 
OPENING A BEIDGE. 41 
 
 •whicli crown the bastion- like piers ; and a mighty rumour is 
 heard approaching. Perhaps Hermod the fleet-footed is com- 
 ing from Valhalla upon the great horse Sleipner. Now will 
 the fair watcher of the passage step out and say — 
 
 " Who art thou on thy black and fiery horse, 
 
 Under whose hoofs the bridge o'er Griall's stream 
 Rumbles and shakes ? Tell me thy race and home. " 
 
 But if there be a visitor at hand from the divine halls of 
 Asgard, he does not ride Odin's charger, bat stands with the 
 spectators on the bridge ; and See ! there is not one fiery steed 
 but four, and their riders are ungod-like mortals. The order 
 is to come "full speed," and the big eai>aZZt fulfil the behest 
 with a noble enthusiasm. There is a shrilly neigh ; and then, 
 with snortings loud and fierce, they hurl themselves foi-ward 
 on the track. The ground quivers. There is a scent of battle. 
 These huge and fiery war-horses have challenged to a trial of 
 strength the burly craftsman who lies waiting in his scarlet 
 jerkin. With a shriek and a furious clangour they are upon 
 him, and while we dreadfully expect to see him marred and 
 ruined by the shock of their onset, lo, he takes them in the 
 hollow of his hand, and lightly passes them from shore to 
 shore ! The baffled monsters give out a cry of rage, but the 
 unexhausted impulse of their charge carries them helplessly 
 away. They are curbed by their riders and brought meekly 
 back to the place whence they started. They are once more 
 engines, no longer war-horses. With their return to sober 
 industry, it is time to strip off the garb of metaphor. The 
 people on the bridge prove their solid humanity by becoming 
 hungry. They speak of the fact to one another. The engineers 
 take down their tripods, and put away the instruments with 
 which they have been observing the behaviour of the iron 
 girders in the time of trial just overpast. The bridge is 
 declared "open ;" and the lady who wielded the hammer drives 
 
42 IN THE C. P. 
 
 the first train across. Into this train get the hungry ones, 
 and are carried forward to one of those breakfasts which im- 
 pose themselves upon all bridge-openings like orange blossoms 
 upon the celebration of marriage. The programme of the day 
 is not thus exhausted ; the bridge that has been formally 
 delivered over to traffic leads to a mine ; it is proper to go and 
 look at the mine. Some of the party consider it proper also 
 to go down the mine; but the less adventurous visitor contents 
 himself with peering timidly into the grim and murky shaft 
 which seems to descend to the earth's mysterious centre, and 
 whence the smoke of a draught furnace curls pungently up. 
 There is much to interest him above ground. The huge drum, 
 with its coils of wire rope, whereby the miners' cages are 
 lowered ; the dial plate with its revolving index finger, showing 
 the position in the shaft of the ascending or descending cage ; 
 the slowly-swinging cranks of the huge pumps which discharge 
 a rivulet of water raised from dark depths. There is a jerky, 
 groaning sound as the pistons rise and fall, reminding him of 
 the ejaculatory remonstrances of a kneeling camel whose load 
 is being heavily piled. The quick and silent action of the 
 dial-index is suggestive of far more intelligent resource. The 
 observer is inclined to fancy that the dumb monster, whose 
 finger language is so ready, could tell him many more things 
 about the persons who have gone down into the pit, if it tried. 
 It might signal how they were feeling — hot, exhausted, stifling, 
 or in syncope, instead of simply ticking off perpendicular yards. 
 But its masters have not provided it with a sufficient alphabet. 
 He leaves the engine-room with a great respect for the cultured 
 drum-engine, and with a feeling of subdued compassion for 
 brute-pumps. 
 
 A special train carried the visitors homewards. In India 
 a special train is not like special trains in other countries. 
 It is special in occasion only, and not in speed. Ungenerous 
 traffic -managers, with an eye to business, play tricks upon it. 
 
THE INDIAN DRUM. 43 
 
 The special starts gallantly, but is tripped up by artful 
 telegrams, wMoli lie in wait for it at unsuspected stations. 
 Station-masters, egged-on by these telegrams, cruelly prefix a 
 long row of ougbt-Hke wagons to the decimal digit of the 
 passenger-van. Thus diminished in appreciable worth, the 
 latter trundles tediously along, and never sees it bourne till 
 the sad- eyed midnight has placed an opiate hand on the weary 
 traveller's brows. 
 
 THE INDIAN DRUM. 
 
 I. 
 
 Does a Bajah march 
 
 Or a ryot wed — 
 Do the torches arch 
 
 Their light o'er head, 
 Where silks are worn 
 
 And bracelets glance. 
 Where gods are borne 
 
 And dancers dance ? 
 What music leads 
 
 The festive throng — 
 What magic speeds 
 
 The rout along ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Is it the blare 
 
 Of the tube of brass. 
 The flute-blown air 
 
 Or the cymbal's clash ? 
 Is it the shriek 
 
 Of the gusty pipe — 
 The wind-bag's squeak 
 
 In the Minstrel's gripe ? 
 
44 IN THE C. P. 
 
 All, no ! — less shrill, 
 More loud than these 
 
 Are the notes that fill 
 The eastern breeze. 
 
 III. 
 Trom the close bazaar, 
 
 From the dusty street. 
 From lanes that are 
 
 For life unmeet, 
 With a hoarse reply 
 
 To the player's skill. 
 While the horn's notes die 
 
 And the pipes are still, — 
 What rustic noise 
 
 Do I hear come ? — 
 ' Tis the blatant voice 
 
 Of the Indian drum ! 
 
 MOONJ. 
 
 V 
 
 Meeting one or two dignitaries with whose presence I was 
 accustomed to associate much of what is grand in the law, and 
 admirable in administration, hurrying homeward like strayed 
 revellers from a classic feast, mth garlands of roses about 
 their necks, and gyves of jessamine on their ,wrists, I respect- 
 fully asked for an explanation. They hurriedly pointed to 
 a huge booth hard by, erected within the court-yard of the 
 Rajah's palace, and passed on their way like men bent on over- 
 taking an hour that has escaped them. Marvelling, I turned 
 my steps to the court-yard. The walls of it were covered with 
 rude frescoes done in dark outline, and representing mostly 
 tigers in all the heraldic positions, — ^rampant, couchant, pas- 
 sant. The arched gateway was thronged with loiterers and 
 
MOONJ. 45 
 
 persons passing in and out. From among the crowd stepped 
 forward the august and gray-haired seneschal of tte palace, 
 and took me by the hand and led me in. I found myself 
 in a tabernacle of mats, lofty and spacious, dignified with 
 tall pillars, and gay with gauzy drapery. From the roof 
 hung many lamps of glass, and every pillar was swathed in 
 tissue paper. The area was crowded with Hindu visitors in 
 their best cotton attire, but in the centre was a clear space 
 laid with a white foot cloth, where stood a table with vessels 
 of atar andean, two silver chairs, and a long sofa. In front of 
 the sofa was a foot-stool. The seneschal made me occupy both 
 sofa and f oot-stool-j and then led up many august persons of his 
 family line, who each and all shook me by the hand. I turned 
 to ask him what it all meant; he said it was " moonj." Not 
 carmg to trespass further on his kindness by closer inquiries as 
 to moonj, I simply asked if this was all, or was there more to 
 come ? He responded by saying that I must see the young 
 prince in his new Brahminical thread. He was on view, he 
 added, in a chamber hard by. Again taken by the hand, the 
 crowd parting to right and left of us, I was brought to the 
 door of a small chamber like the vestibule of a temple, open- 
 ing out of the hall. Within,- 1 spied our Rajah sitting in half- 
 nakedness, with his son ia like nudity upon his knees. Both 
 were much be-garlanded, and sat as motionless as art subjects. 
 Behind squatted the officiating priest, with the pleased smile 
 of a man who owns a camera obscura, and is drawing crowds. 
 A dim and uncanny yellow light was poured over the group 
 from a veiled ceil de boeuf in the back-ground. I was about to 
 press forward and shake our Rajah by the hand, when I was 
 told that I could only look, and might not enter and touch. 
 So I stared at him tUl he bowed. Pleased with this sign of 
 vitality, I made many responsive salaams, and said it was the 
 best tableau vivant I had seen for some time. In fact, it re- 
 minded me of the god Osiris with the infant Horus in his arms. 
 
46 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Ciianibers were continually shot off within ; and strains of 
 music from an invisible source enlivened the tedium of the 
 royal pose. A haunting sense of hollow shows came upon me 
 as upon Ida's suitor in The Princess. I m.oved away as in a 
 dream, and was brought through the crowd to a little pavilion, 
 where a tiny fountain spouted, and three fishes went sullenly 
 round in a glass bowl. Numbers of Hindus were gazing grave- 
 ly at this spectacle, and a weird feeling seized me that there 
 was something in it which I could not see by reason of my 
 feeble mood. I asked no questions, therefore, and came back 
 to the sofa and the silver chairs. I was then decorated with 
 the floral cordon and the gyves of jessamine. Hastily se- 
 creting the inevitable pan-leaf with its cloves and garniture 
 in my trouser pocket, I summoned up courage for a last 
 question of the seneschal, and said — " But what, after all, 
 is moonj ? " " This is moonj," he replied ; " and if you come 
 here to-morrow and the next day, it will be just the same " 
 "And does the Rajah sit there just the same?" I asked, 
 dreamily shaking hand with everybody within reach — " Just 
 the same," he answered cheerfully. I went out into the 
 sunlight with my garlands about me, like a heifer prepared for 
 sacrifice. To [this day moonj remains a mystery to me as 
 great as that of Eleusis. ,,,, 
 
 " FAR NIENTE. " 
 
 Dream yet awhile, break not thy quiet mood ; 
 
 Although the stir of dawn is in the sky, 
 A star broods still. Rise not in hardihood : 
 
 Ton palm tree frowns at thee and bids thee lie. 
 
IN THE GRAIN-SHEDS. 47 
 
 II. 
 
 Wliy sHould'st tliou haste to greet the rousing ills 
 -Of yester eve ? Day broadens into flame ; 
 
 Its burning whisper moTes along the hills — 
 All will be ardour soon, and all things same. 
 
 III. 
 Is toil so sweet ? Has life no other song 
 
 Than the dull, croon of the official mill ? 
 What grist is ground of all thy labours long ? 
 
 Or place or fame ? Lie still, poor fool, lie still ! 
 
 m THE. GRAIN-SHEDS. 
 
 TJndeenbath the bare and sallow blufE of Seetabuldi Hill, 
 stands the Nagpur Railway Station. The rail comes in from 
 Bhosawal and Bombay on the one side, and, on the other, 
 trends out through the military cantonment of Kamptee 
 towards those districts, rich in grain, which are called the 
 Chattisgurh districts, and which it will ultimately penetrate 
 and tap. Till then, the long train of carts, which make cease- 
 less jolt and jangle on the road from Raipur to Nagpur, will 
 continue to bring wheat, rice, and linseed, over-much com- 
 mingled with dust and chaff, to the dep6ts in the latter town, 
 where buyers from Bombay do business. The powdery detritus 
 of the road penetrates the sacking which holds the grain, and 
 adds to the percentage of the foreign matter which fraud or 
 negligence has admitted ; and often the unscrupulous cartman 
 helps himself to a handful from, the bags, and makes good the 
 vacancies with straw. Indian dealers may stomach this, but 
 not the English trade ; and so the grain must be passed 
 through the cleaning machine before it is shipped for Eng- 
 land. 
 
IN THK C. P. 
 
 Come for a while witli me out of the sunsMne into the 
 shelter of the long-tiled sheds which flank the roadway in 
 front of the station. They are open on three sides, and a 
 cool breeze blows through. One forgets the heat which makes 
 a trembling haze about the white chimney stalk of the neigh- 
 bouring cotton mills, and dwells thirstily on the blue waters 
 of the talao which stretches citywards from the Station gates. 
 There is a throng of carts on the dusty road, and here is one 
 which is being backed to deposit its load on the threshold 
 where we stand. The bullocks are taken out, and the cart 
 tilted ; and the grain it held in loose bulk is poured out on the 
 floor. It is gorani or white linseed from the Nagpur district 
 — ^broad of grain, light golden in colour, and shining as the 
 wet sands at ebb. As the stream descends, the yellower seeda 
 show like mossy patches among the white ; and waves of light 
 and shade alternate on the rippling pile of ulsee, which grows 
 higher on the floor; Round about stand Jcunhis, dallals, 
 weighmen, and on-lookers. Here is the jewelled Marwaree 
 who bought from yonder well-clad middleman, who, in his 
 turn, advanced the money which enabled the unclean cul- 
 tivator, who stands by the cart, to bring his crop to market. 
 The jewelled Marwaree is the broker with whom the firm which 
 owns the sheds does business ; and he stands here all the day, 
 bargaining for an anna or more profit per Tchandi, and growing 
 quietly fat in this shrewd, lazy fashion. The agent of the 
 firm is quite in love with this gorani linseed, and ever and 
 anon takes up a handful caressingly, and says, "Would it were 
 all like this ! But, n'trnporte, they will mix it at Bombay with 
 the darker qualities, and leaven the whole consignment with 
 its creamy goodness. The measurers begin their task — shabby 
 men with nimble fingers and sharp eyes, who squat on each 
 side of the heap of grain, with pylie in "hand. The pylie is an 
 iron measuring-pot, like a tankard without a handle, but smaller 
 at the brim than at the base. There is a beautiful uncertainty 
 
IN THE GEAIN-SHEDS. 49 
 
 about its exact capacity — the pylies used in the towns by the 
 merchants who sell, being infinitely smaller than those used 
 in the villages by the agents, or middlemen, who buy. There 
 is a beautiful uncertainty, too, in the filling of the measure ; 
 for an adroit knave can pile the grain high, by slyly placing 
 his finger on the brim. It is for this reason that two mea- 
 surers are employed — one named by the seller, and the other 
 by the buyer. They eye each other keenly and curiously — 
 
 " As careful robins eye the delver's toil," 
 and when the buyer's man puts his finger on his pylie's rim, 
 the seller's minion shoves his thumb inside his, and so the 
 count is squared. All the while, they chant a melancholy dirge, 
 the burden of which is the number of pylies they toss into 
 the open sack held by a third man, and it is wonderful with 
 what rapidity their task proceeds. It is wonderful, also, to 
 reflect that, by a local custom, the buyer pays them both. 
 This linseed being measured and put into sacks, is ready at 
 once to be loaded at the Station without further process ; for 
 the cultivators of this district winnow the grain twice before 
 bringing it to market, and the percentage of chaff and dirt in 
 it is, therefore, small. It is the Raipur grain which requires 
 cleaning ; the lazy ryots only winnow it once, and it has caught 
 up much uncleanness, besides, on the road. In a neighbouring 
 shed is heard the hum of the cleaning machines, hard at work 
 on this brown Raipur linseed. Let us pass over to the shed 
 and see the process. Many women are seated on the ground 
 with soops or winnowing shovels, made of green bamboo, and 
 shaped like a house-maid's dust-pan, in their hands. The lin- 
 seed is first roughly cleansed by being tossed in these shovels. 
 It is then taken to the machine, which shakes it from sieve to 
 sieve, and fans it hard with revolving shuttles before it shoots 
 it out below. The air is filled with dusty particles blown 
 aloft by the fans, and a residuum of dust and chafE gather 
 below the perforate plane along which the grain descends to 
 
50 
 
 IN THE C. P. 
 
 its outlet. Mounds of this dust and chaff fill one end of the 
 shed ; and it is only on looking at them that one fully realizes 
 the amount of foreign matter which some grain- consignments 
 contain. On examining the refuse, the mass of it is found to 
 consist of the husks and fragments of the leaves and stalk of 
 the linseed plants ; but, intermingled, are wisps of straw, stones, 
 and earthy powder from the threshing floor and from the road. 
 It is curious to think that, with every thousand bags of linseed 
 painfully dragged two hundred miles and more from the 
 harvest floor to this shed, come fifty bags of this rubbish, 
 subtly, but not inseparably, intermixed. If the cleaning could 
 be done at the starting-place, so much extra freight would, 
 of course, be eliminated ; and doubtless when the Chattisgarh 
 railway passes through the Raipur district, the machines will 
 " go to the front," as one may phrase it ; and give the crops of 
 those parts a higher name in the market than they now bear. 
 Meantime, let us be grateful to mercantile enterprise which 
 plants its protest here against native carelessness and fraud in 
 the practical form of these ceaselessly busy machines. 
 
 NAG-PANCHAMI. 
 
 A crowd 
 Circled the palace. Peons and police 
 Buffietting, face and flank, the turbaned throng, 
 Made forceful way. We found a postern-door 
 (The palace-gate was barred against the mob) , 
 And entered — Lo ! a courtyard gay with guests, 
 And round two sides an open corridor, 
 And on the third, the Palace. Men and boys 
 Clung to the roofs and raised an airy hum. 
 Then came the portly Rajah, clad with gauze, 
 Which showed the wrinkled riches of his ribs, 
 And led us to the satin couch prepared. 
 
NAG-PANOHAMI. 51 
 
 It was the Feast of Wrestlers. In. the midst, 
 
 A clear space, strewn with sand and fenced with boughs, 
 
 Centred the warring hopes of all the throng. 
 
 For two stout "Wrestlers, matched in thews and skill. 
 
 From Poonah and the Punjab, champion men. 
 
 Stripped for the prize and closed within the ring ! 
 
 There, like two surly bulls who scent a fray. 
 
 They eyed each other hard, with heads low down, 
 
 And tossed the russet sand on neck and flank, 
 
 And strove with wary hands to plant the grip. 
 
 The murmur of the anxious crowd within 
 
 Rose like a river brawling o'er its stones ; 
 
 And ever and anon a desperate man 
 
 Burst through the Wicket in the palace-gate 
 
 And mixed unbidden with the bidden throng ! ' 
 
 Then cried the easy Rajah — " Misri Khan ! 
 
 Bid the knaves stir themselves, and end the fray ! " 
 
 But they, remembering the bets that lay 
 
 And wavered in the balance as they swayed. 
 
 Turned a deaf ear and waited, breathing hard. 
 
 Suddenly rose a cry — " The Punjabi 
 
 Is worsted!" — -and a million cowries moved 
 
 In visionary change from pouch to pouch ! 
 
 But, lo ! he was not worsted, but he lay 
 
 All his huge length, breast downwards, on the sand 
 
 And kept his broad back bravely to the. sky ! 
 
 There like a frog he pufEed, and blinked his eyes 
 
 In scornful ease, while he of Poonah strove. 
 
 By pulling at his ankles and his thighs 
 
 And levering with his knee upon his spine. 
 
 To turn him like a turtle— all in vain ! 
 
 Thus for two hours they strove for mastery. 
 
 And neither yet achieved the thing he sought — > 
 
 To lay his rival's back along the ground ! 
 
62 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Then cried the fat-faced Rajah — " Misri Khan ! 
 Bring ont the 'pan and atar !" — and he brought, 
 And -with fair smiles we took the things we loathed ; 
 And being daubed with sandal and with scents, 
 And noosed about our necks with jessamine. 
 We sadly went, and left them wrestling still ! 
 
 AT RAMTEK. 
 
 In his 'seventh Avatar, Vishnu took the form of Rama; 
 and the outcome of it was that he made a hill sacred to his 
 nam.e, and a temple was built on the top. They plant temples 
 in this country as oak-trees are planted at home — to comme- 
 morate the visits of the exalted. White and fair and sun- 
 light-kist, the domes upon the hill of Rama are conspicuous 
 from afar. 
 
 At the foot of the hill is a lake, rounded in by a steep, 
 wooded vale, in shape resembling a horse-shoe. Pineapple 
 domes stud the marge. Here, in the month of November, 
 when the moon is full, come many traders from m.any parts, 
 and set up their booths on the water's edge. Markets and 
 religion have always been linked ; and the people who come to 
 buy, come also to bathe. The bones of the departed, done up 
 in neat packets, and carried on the points of spears, are tossed 
 into the tank. ^. 
 
 The steep stone stairs are painfully climbed. Rama gets 
 wreaths of marigolds ; and the line of fakirs and gosains on 
 either side, like a balustrade, get cowries and handfuls of rice. 
 They whine out blessings and curses ; and here and there a trou- 
 badour strikes the untuneful strings. From Rome to Ramtek, 
 from pulpit to puja-stone, you will find worship strangely con- 
 nected with the climbing of stairs. The sense of energy 
 expended for a moral object is doubtless of spiritual use. It 
 must be remembered, too, that the elevation of the body gives 
 
AT EAMTEK. 63 
 
 ^ the soul a lift. Pride loves high places ; and high places, if 
 they belong to you, beget pride. If they do not belong to you, 
 the sensation is slightly different. When breath is regained, 
 the eye surveys the prospect with complacency, for life seems 
 wider. Lest foolish humanity should exult too much, there is 
 the thought of going down again, and the sight of the sacred 
 fanes to temper its enthusiasm. So foolish humanity contents 
 itself with thanking heaven that it has got to the top, and with 
 taking such relish of the eye and of religious emotion as it can — '■ 
 " The gods are happy, 
 They turn on all sides 
 Their shining eyes 
 And see, below them 
 The earth, and men." 
 ' These reflections, are perhaps inappropriate to the place ; for 
 they are born of secular freedom of thought, and this is the 
 platform of priesthood. They would be unintelligible to yonder 
 Marwaree, who is toiling up the steps with his wife behind him. 
 He will have to spend a thousand rupees on feeding Brahmins. 
 " But hear ye this, ye sons of men. 
 They that bear rule, and are obeyed. 
 Unto a rule more strong than theirs 
 Are in their turn obedient made." 
 And here is the Chief Commissioner coming down the steps. 
 The steps are most fatiguing. They are not continuous, but fall 
 from platform to platform. The feeling generated towards the 
 close of the descent is one of stupor, interrupted by wakeful 
 starts. Were it not for the presence of Hermia, Gracilla, and 
 other ladies "the temptation to cut the trouble short "by a 
 rush like that of " the steep precipitate rivulet to the sea," 
 would be overpowering. Arrived at the bottom, one feels as 
 did the sick king in Bokhara — 
 
 " My head is burning, and a heat 
 Is in my skin which angers me." 
 
54 IN THE- C. P. 
 
 Cr _ "... 
 
 The high-heaped booths, with their quaint collections of brass, 
 
 copper, glass, silver, cloth, sweetmeats, tobacco, and walking- 
 sticks, somewhat soothe the harassed mind. It is reported that 
 there are fifty thousand persons in the Fair and about it ; and 
 certainly the throng and hum are considerable. There is no 
 pressure, however, and no disturbance. A more orderly crowd 
 could nowhere be found. The Chief Comm.issioner moves 
 among them unattended with as much ease and freedom from 
 curious following as if he were in Oxford-street. Better tes- 
 timony than this to the patriarchal character of his rule he 
 could not desire. The m.erry-go-round does not stop when 
 he passes, the five-legged cow does not cease to draw, and 
 the bangle-sellers hold on to the wrists of their customers. It 
 is wonderful with what patient moulding of the hands the glass 
 circlets are one after another indued. Trying on a kid gloves 
 is nothing to it. The operation must be positively painful, as 
 one jadges when some white hands take the place of dusty 
 ones, between the fingers of a grey- haired artiste in the pro- 
 fession. The fun of the Pair is not confined to m.erry-go-rounds 
 and lusus naturm. There are races, wrestling, ram-fights, and 
 an agricultural show. Native gentlemen of a sporting turn do 
 a little surreptitious betting, with the fear of the Chief Commis- 
 sioner and of British morality before their eyes. The sport of 
 wrestling is the one naost appreciated by the multitude. The 
 ring is thronged ; and the mango trees crack beneath swarms 
 of eager climbers. A branch gives way ; and in the panic 
 generated by the sudden noisy descent of the men above it, a 
 score of trees are emptied as by magic ; puggeries and doputtas 
 pouring like water to the ground. At the renghi races there is 
 some want of intelligence. A native always seems a fool in the 
 matter of getting out of the way of a rapidly moving vehicle ; 
 and the crowd which forms across the race course beyond the 
 winning post do not seem at all alive to the danger of their 
 position. Every now and then a triumphant Jehu dashes into 
 
AT RAMTEK. 55 
 
 ^ their midst ; and on one occasion a whole family, including the 
 infant in arms, are bowled over like ninepins — much to their 
 astonishment apparently, but little to their hurt. A Nagpuri 
 offers so little resistance to impact that the wave of force goes 
 over him, as the wind goes over wheat. The joy of these diver- 
 sions is that the prizes are ready cash. The Chief Commis- 
 sioner walks about like a happy caliph, with a vazier carrying a 
 cash-bag in close attendance. For the love of five rupees, many 
 a Mahratta attempts a thing before unknown to him — aiding a 
 donkey in a race. Several, relatives attend the daring per- 
 former, and encourage him and his donkey with shouts and 
 blows. Alas, his legs are not long enough, and he falls off. 
 It is only the rider, with shanks fulfilling the description of 
 Chaucer's pilgrim — 
 
 Full longe wern his legges and full lean, 
 All like a staffe — there was no calfy-seene — 
 who endujes unto the finish, by reason of his toes being lock- 
 ed beneath the belly of his ass. He jumps down, in a delirium 
 of joy, when he finds himself the victor, and the winner of 
 several sequins. 
 
 At 'dusk-fall, between the fading of the sunset and the 
 first faint glow of the " silver sister orb " above the dark 
 shoulder of the valley, a native imitator of Brock sends up his 
 rockets and fire balloons into the doubtful darkness of the sky. 
 White-garmented spectators throng the slopes, the margin of 
 the lake keeps its crowds, a weird veil of smoke-wreaths 
 streams across the Fair. This strange people takes its pleasure 
 quietly, and while the balloons become as planets in the vault 
 of heaven and the exploded rockets scatter their sparks over 
 head, there is little noise heard beyond a hum as of multitudes 
 afar, the occasional tapping of a drum, and the wail of a song 
 from the spirit shops. «, 
 
56 IN THE C. P. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 A FiEECE Haze throbs on the barren plain 
 And grasshoppers chirp of noon : 
 
 But hope says again that a mighty rain 
 Will come with to-night's wan moon — 
 Night's tearful, rack-blurred moon. 
 
 11- 
 
 A wind shall blow from beneath her throne, 
 And howl in the shrivelled trees ; 
 
 And drought o'erthrown, with a piercing moan 
 "Will die in the rushing breeze — 
 In the sobbing, balm- fraught breeze. 
 
 The fair night-robe which earth shall wear 
 
 , Is a garment of gleaming rain; 
 
 And tree and tare shall get drink to spare 
 
 And my life have its pith again — 
 
 Its m^arrow and pith again. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Their shadowy screens from the doors shall go, 
 
 And the restless punkah cease — 
 Oh, soon may the sun in his west be low 
 
 And the mother of night bring peace — 
 
 In her stormy robe bring peace. 
 
Part II. 
 
 OFFICIAL. 
 
The realma of Poetry and Love are one ! — 
 Wherever throbs a kindly human heart, 
 
 Wherever orbs the moon and shines the sun, 
 
 Wherever youth and hope together run, 
 
 Or time and sorrow drives these friends apart — 
 There Poetry, if not the Poet's Art, 
 
 Is bom : and her sweet sense is to be won 
 By every man who plays a ruler's part ! 
 
 What is the ruler's part ? To sternly shun 
 
 What smacks not of the forum and the mart — ■ 
 To grind the mUl till quite with toil fordone. 
 To see no glory in the moon and sun, 
 
 Nor ever quit the quern and muse apart ? 
 
 If this were so, then vain the Muse's Art, 
 And, bare th.ey apes or men, all lands were one 
 
 To every man who played a ruler's part ! 
 
 How shall we say, then, of this tropic sun 
 
 That he is foe to all poetic art ? 
 Through Palm and Tamaruid these whispers run 
 " Lift up thine eyes, Numeria's weary son. 
 
 Receive the bright day's message in thy heart ! 
 
 Lone in the glowing plain, a prince thou art 
 Of mage-like power ! Here poet's bays are won 
 
 By every man who plays a ruler's part !" 
 L'Envoi. 
 'Twas therefore that I lately said to one 
 
 Who blamed this land of Ind — " It is the heart 
 That errs!" A poet singing in the sun 
 
 Is every man who plays a ruler's part ! 
 
PART II. 
 OFFICIAL. 
 
 FOUNDING A CITY * 
 
 Six of us went to found a city. The way we went about 
 it, and the reasons for our doing it, were as follows : — 
 
 The cotton interest is a growing one in these parts. The 
 grounds of Old Monopoly have been trenched upon by Toung 
 Enterprise. Old Monopoly, fighting sturdily against the in- 
 vader, has only wakened fresh eagerness in the foe. To show 
 himself alive and fearless, and at the same time with some hope 
 of transferring the scene of conflict to ground at a distance 
 from his main position. Old Monopoly has schemed the estab- 
 lishment of a new mart. He has gone further ; he has 
 bought a piece of land, and sent engines there for his steam- 
 press. Whereupon it behoves Toung Enterprise to do like- 
 wise ; it concerns the district officer to maintain the interests 
 of Government in respect of the sale of sites ; and it concerns 
 a crowd of pushing mahajuns, brokers, and hanias that they 
 should secure locations as near as possible to the destined 
 market. So all these different interests took train one morn- 
 ing to Bridge-town ; and I, being but too glad of an excuse 
 for a holiday, went with them to play " Puck " to the lovers 
 of commerce. It was quite plain that they were deeply in 
 love with the weU-dowered lady. Toung Enterprise, who was 
 unattended, pretended that he had no thoughts of her, and gave 
 out that he was going to see a friend down the line. He 
 clearly looked upon his adversary, who was a bluff, plain- 
 
 * Wardlia District. 
 
58 IN THE C. F. 
 
 spoken person, as a kind of " Old man of the Sea," wlio would 
 get npon Lis back and strangle Mm, if the opportunity were 
 given. Old Monopoly, on the other hand, lost no opportunity 
 of taking the measure of his rival's capabilities ; and whisper- 
 ed gleefully to his two companions of the thrif tlessness shown 
 by the enemy in throwing empty soda-water bottles out of the 
 carriage window. 
 
 Alighting on the platform, we looked around us with the 
 proud consciousness of being about to do a big thing — of being 
 the founders of what might grow to be a city — of being the 
 pioneers of such civilization as attaches to the usages of towns. 
 It is true that on the opposite side of the railway there were 
 to be found the ruins of an abortive township which had been 
 commenced amid anticipations similar to those in which we 
 indulged ; but we flattered oureelves that there was a difference 
 in the conditions of the two undertakings. The enthusiasts 
 who ran up a serai yonder, and, in the plentitude of their zeal 
 for their new foundations, attempted to blow up the walls of 
 the neighbouring mud fort, round which the villagers' huts 
 resolutely clustered, were acting on a wrong principle. 
 
 They first builded, and then waited for trade to countenance 
 their building. We, on the other hand, were but following 
 the lead of trade, and about to align the positions which she 
 herself had resolved to occupy. Our nascent township, there- 
 fore, was in a manner insured against the possibility of a 
 premature decadence. 
 
 Spreading the map of the country upon the table of the 
 waiting-room, we proceeded to plan the site of New Bridge- 
 town. 
 
 At this point arose a dreadful doubt. Was the map of the 
 country correct ? It was of the utmost strategic importance 
 to each of the rival wooers of commerce, that the ground to be 
 occupied by them should abut upon the highway which she 
 was sure to traverse ; to wit, the road running from the rail- 
 
FOITNDINa A CITY. 59 
 
 way station into the interior. Was the position of tliat road 
 correctly indicated upon the map ? Old Monopoly had already, 
 as mentioned, bought land here with a boundary coincident 
 with the border of the highway as shown in the vendor's copy 
 of the settlement chart ; but somebody asserted that the road 
 which existed in 1863 (the date of the chart) had long ago 
 been ploughed over, and that the new track was some ten or 
 fifteen paces to the left of it. Here was a discovery indeed ! 
 Old Monopoly looked as if a miue had been sprung upon him. 
 One of his friends whispered that if that were indeed so, he, 
 Old Monopoly, was literally "hoist with his own petard." 
 Young Enterprise began dimly to descry as advantage. Both 
 parties blew a flourishing point of war, and we hurried out to 
 solve our doubts upon the ground. 
 
 A crop of jowarry had considerably hidden the pegs which 
 demarcated Old Monopoly's acquisition, but he plunged man- 
 fully iato the moist field and hunted them out. 
 
 When their position was found, it seemed indeed that some- 
 body's assertion was true, for the boundary of Old Monopoly's 
 newly-bought premises was not conterminous with the existing 
 road. There was an interval of some ten paces between them. 
 Whereupon he waxed wroth, and exclaimed that he had thought 
 all along that there was a half-acre missing in the allotment 
 he had purchased, and here was the half-acre that had been 
 dropped. At the same moment it occurred to Young Enter- 
 prise that this half-acre was exactly the location which would 
 suit him, and that no other would do as well. Simultaneously 
 the bit of land was claimed as nuzzool by the district officer ; 
 and a man who had built a Jcutcha-pucJea house upon the very 
 front of the patch, and sunk a well along side, let his voice be 
 heard as a trespasser with implied " leave and license," through 
 the laches of the proprietor of the soil. Under these circum- 
 stances it is to be imagined that a warm discussion arose — 
 warm as the sun which poured pitiless rays upon the group of 
 
60 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Europeans and the silent circle of red-pnggried, uncompre- 
 hending natives. Indignation raised the language of Old Mo- 
 nopoly and Young Enterprise into oratory. By common con- 
 sent the claims of the owner of the Tcutclia-jpucka house were 
 promptly extinguished. 
 
 " I will oust him at once," said Old Monopoly. "Touwill 
 save me the trouble," exclaimed Young Enterprise. The 
 district officer took the occasion to observe that if the tres- 
 passer based his title to remain on the laches of Government, 
 he would have him understand that the title was no title — ^f or 
 tenvpus non ocaurrit regi. The man of the Jcutcha-piicha house 
 cringed and retired. The field being thus left free to the other 
 disputants, Old Monopoly asked politely to be informed why 
 his rival could not be accommodated on the opposite side of the 
 road ? The latter stated the reason to be that another mer- 
 chant had prospected that site, and begged, in his turn, to be 
 informed why this half-acre was so particularly necessary to 
 his excellent friend, and upon what ground he based his claim 
 to it. " Grounds ? " roared the other, " on the best of 
 grounds ; I was here lefore you ! " 
 
 I explained to Young Enterprise that the gentleman looked 
 upon the land as having become his by first occupancy, on the 
 same principle that the Crown assumes sovereignty over un- 
 occupied countries, quod enim ante nullius est id naturali 
 ratione oaeupanti eonceditur (as Justinian hath it) ; and that the 
 argument wholly turned upon the point as to whether this was 
 indeed res nullius. "As for what I want it for," added Old 
 Monopoly, " you may as well know that I intend to build a 
 bungalow here." "And I am prepared to support the gentle- 
 man's claim," said the district oflGicer gravely. Whereupon 
 Young Enterprise got upon a hillock and harangued us. " Is 
 this," said he, in tones of impassioned irony, " your boasted 
 jurisprudence ? I put it to you. Sir, which of us two 
 has in equity the better claim to this plot of ground — 
 
FOUNDING A CITY. 61 
 
 the man who has already secured ample accommodation for his 
 cotton-press, and now seeks to indulge in. the luxury of a bun- 
 galow, or the representative of an important commercial firm, 
 who, in the event of the premises on the other side of the 
 road being taken up, is totally unprovided for ! And I may 
 ask," he went on with a glance of haughty disdain, " who this 
 gentleman is who asserts for himself such royal rights in ad- 
 vance of all others ?" "With this splendid aposiopesis, he came 
 down from his knoll, and we stood silent under the effect of 
 his eloquence. Old Monopoly was breathless with rage, but at 
 last found utterance to gasp. " Fine logic, but the plot is mine 
 for all that." " Under whose assurance ? " snapped the other. 
 "Away with thee, thou maker of Jewish bargains !" This 
 was too much for Old Monopoly. " One must draw the line 
 somewhere," said he to his companions, " and this young man 
 is to me entirely objectionable." And so, although we lin- 
 gered about a little longer, the city could not get itself 
 founded that day at all. Old Monopoly was sulky and re- 
 tired to the waiting-room, where he looked moodily out of 
 window. Toung Enterprise (who dropped all animosity the 
 moment the matter-of -business was out of hand) tried to coax 
 his late adversary into a good temper. 
 
 He did not succeed ; but an accidental remark of mine effect- 
 ed the desired end. Young Enterprise having changed his 
 mind several times on a point of intention, I said to him, " I 
 have scripture warrant for telling thee that unstable ,as water 
 thou shalt not excel." "Hist," said Old Monopoly in my ear, 
 "keep your pearls of wisdom to yourself, you are teaching him 
 far too much, far too much." 
 
 And he was so delighted with his own merry quip, that he 
 forgot his injuries and opened his tiffin basket. 
 
62 IN THE 0. P. 
 
 THE DUEBAR. 
 I. 
 
 The chief was coining ; a Durbar 
 Was to be held. The Tahsildar 
 Scented his fortune from afar. 
 
 II. 
 
 " By Allah ! I mil raise," vowed he, 
 " Subscriptions for a pageantry 
 And win myself an E'. A. C* ! " 
 
 III. 
 Thus scheming, he met Miinna Seyt, 
 A banker, yearning for the state 
 Of Honorary Magistrate. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Seyt Jee ! " said he, "if you will lend 
 
 Tour purse's aid my zeal to mend, 
 
 You shall be clothed with honour, friend ! " 
 
 V. 
 Munna " bled " freely. Arches rose 
 And banners flew : and not a close 
 Was left offensive to the nose. 
 
 VI. 
 
 With painted pillars in a row 
 
 A garden gleamed, where men did sow 
 
 Much wheat, a rising green to show. 
 
 VII. 
 
 With shawls the destined hall was dim : 
 School children learned a special hymn — 
 God save the Empress- Queen and JTirn.' 
 
 * Extra Assistant Commissionership. 
 
THE DUEBAB. 63 
 
 Till. 
 
 Munna hoped Hgtly. He had " bled " 
 Profusely. Loudly in his head 
 Rang words the Tahsildar had said. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The chief arrived, was pleased. A nod 
 Made the gay Tahsildar a god ; 
 And Munna almost grasped the rod 
 
 X. 
 
 Wherewith he hoped to softly flay 
 His debtors in a legal way — 
 (A sharp Mohurrir in his pay) . 
 
 XI. 
 
 Then spake the chief : " O Munna Seyt ! 
 The town's own council needs the weight 
 Of your ripe wisdom in debate — 
 
 XII. 
 
 The officers municipal 
 
 Will never gather in their hall, 
 
 But Munna Seyt shall have a call ! " 
 
 XIII. 
 
 He finished — and a heavy sound 
 
 Was heard that instant on the ground — 
 
 'Twas Munna, fallen in a swound ! 
 
 XIT. 
 
 They picked Mm up and bore him far 
 By order of the Tahsildar — 
 And the chief ended the Durbar. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Then shortly from the Tahsili 
 He who had held the treasure-key 
 Went forth an acting E. A. C* 
 
 * Extra Assistant Conuuissiouer. 
 
64 IN THE C. P. 
 
 THE LAST HALF-HOUR. 
 
 The last half -hour of the magisterial day is generally taken 
 up with hearing the complaints which have been accumulat- 
 ing since noon. A little pile of stamped papers, scrawled 
 over with the inelegant characters of the petition- writer, who 
 sits outside the cutcherry door, represents the justice-demand 
 of the hour. It is nearly always the same round of griev- 
 ances ; and that is a red-letter day on which the unscrupul- 
 ous scribe aforesaid has not managed to distort a purely 
 civil grievance into a criminal offence. He is an adept at the 
 art of cooking up a fray out of a question of mewni and tuum ; 
 and by the insinuation of a slap, he will bring within the cog- 
 nizance of the Magistrate a matter of law which had else 
 found discussion before the revenue officer or the Civil Judge. 
 His cunning is assisted by the possession and study of a dog- 
 eared copy of the Penal Code, or of the schedule of offences 
 attached thereto ; and he must be a pitiful fellow, indeed, if 
 he cannot find therein a section which will apply to any tort, 
 lesion, infraction of rights in rem or ad rem, or damage whereof 
 there is a remedium juris. The numerical denotation of com- 
 mon offences which is popular with both police and public, is at 
 the tip of his pen ; and if he is in doubt at any time which is the 
 appropriate num.ber to scrawl at the head of a complaint, he 
 jots down two or three of the likeliest, and, like charity, 
 covers a multitude of sins. The woman who quarrelled and 
 fought, after the manner of vixenfe, with her neighbour, is 
 delighted to find that the latter's conduct can be labelled with 
 such stigmatising numbers as 500, 504, 356, and 352 ; and the 
 ryot whose plough has been stopped by an ejecting landlord 
 thinks that he has got the full value of his notary's fee when 
 he learns that it is a case of sections 341, 426, 447, and 606, — 
 all in one. He is as much astonished as was M. Jourdan 
 when he made that famous discovery about prose. He veils 
 
THE LAST HALP-HOUB. 65 
 
 his joy ia a discreet modesty ; but there is an indescribable 
 sometbing in his tread and carriage when he deposits the pre- 
 cious paper of complaint on the Magistrate's desk, which 
 seems to say — " There lies my battery, you will find it mount- 
 ed with guns of metal, sir." 
 
 If there is anything which relieves the weariness of listen- 
 ing to and endorsing the monotonous repetitions of the last 
 half -hour, it is indeed the observation of the tricks and eccen- 
 tricities of the complainants. A glance at the presenter of a 
 petition is often enough to inform the Magistrate of the 
 nature of the document's contents ; and this, too, without there 
 being any such conspicuous traces of injury as a carefully 
 preserved blood-clot or a gaily-coloured bruise. This man, 
 for instance, with the tears cleverly brimming from under his 
 lids, who is so eager to be heard that the chuprassies can 
 hardly restrain him, has probably been guilty of an assault 
 upon a less fleet-footed adversary, and is anxious to get his 
 version of the affair recorded before the other arrives. Ton 
 kunhi, with the ox-goad in his hand, has got a tale on his lips, 
 which begins with " Maharaj ! " and ends with a plough-tail. 
 His neighbour held the rod when he disputed with him about 
 the common boundary of their fields ; and like the smith in 
 King Henry VI., who called on the chimney to testify that 
 Jack Cade was both king and brick-layer, -he has brought it 
 with him in proof of the truth of his story. The demure 
 woman, who is unnecessarily veiling her face from the impar- 
 tial eyes of justice, has, beyond all doubt, been turned out of 
 doors by her husband ; and like " Roy's wife of Aldivallock," 
 she would make her guideman " wallock " (or wail) with a 
 rousing maintenance order which may drive him to writing- 
 her a document of leave and quittance. Then she will marry 
 the man of her choice. It is thus that the • miscellaneous 
 jurisdiction of the Magistrate is made to include the offices of 
 the Divorce Court. The position of an injured husband who 
 
66 IN THE C. P. 
 
 wants damages for the loss of Ms help-mate, is represented by 
 this coal-black, broad-shouldered Gond, who so quietly puts 
 down his paper and retires. His wife, while in search of em- 
 ployment in some distant village, has held herself out to be a 
 widow, and committed bigamy by a path marriage with a 
 more well-to-do man than himself. He is not shocked, or 
 desirous of exacting the full penalty of the law ; what he wants 
 is to extort a price from the befooled bridegroom. 
 
 If the matters of complaint yield occasionally a certain 
 entertainment from the incongruities of allegation and motive 
 which they suggest, the appearance and conduct of the com- 
 plainants, when called up for examination, are often more absurd. 
 Sobs and a quavering voice are ready at command ; and the 
 appeal of the dishonoured man, whose social position has been 
 ruined by the impact of a piece of cow's bone maliciously 
 flung, would be really touching, but for the teaching of experi- 
 ence that all he seeks is money to pay for the caste-dinner 
 that will restore him. The turmeric-painted bruises of the 
 creditor who has fallen over his debtor's waterpots while on 
 dunning intent, and thinks to turn the occasion to account by 
 inventing an assault, affect him as borrowed plumes did the 
 jay. He turns himself about to be admired, but is made 
 speedily crest-fallen by an order to go and wash all that off at 
 the cutcherry well. The acting of the old lady who, when 
 come into the presence of law upon a trifling matter of tres- 
 pass in respect of a party-wall, falls into a swoon, and will 
 not by any means be lifted from the floor of the court, is more 
 embarrassing than amusing. Other complainants, who have 
 not histrionic powers to trust to, make up a telling tale in 
 their own words, or adapt a formulated description of assault 
 and battery which is supplied to them by the petition- writer. 
 Thus a volley of slaps and buffets is ordinarily followed by a 
 dropping fire of kicks and stick-blows, and culminates in the 
 prostration of the attacked party, and a trampling on his person 
 
THE CUTCHEEET WELL. 67 
 
 by the victorious assailant. In some viciaities, the ungifted 
 complainant is always taught to represent himself as haying 
 become hehosh, or senseless, through the violence o£ his adver- 
 sary ; but this is not the denouement in fashion in other parts, 
 where a dramatic rescue by the people of the neighbourhood 
 is much more commonly described. It is in this way that a 
 good cause is often marred by a backing of falsehood and 
 exaggeration ; and, as Lord Bacon puts it — " Justice cannot 
 yield her fruit with sweetness amongst the briars and bram- 
 bles, of catching and poling clerks and ministers." It is a 
 pity that his opinion is not more closely followed in what he 
 says as to the place of justice being " a hallowed place ; " and 
 that therefore "not only the bench, but the foot-pace and pre- 
 cincts and purprise thereof, ought to be preserved without 
 scandal and corruption." In respect of petition- writers, this 
 desirable result might be partly brought about by the refusal 
 of permission to ply their trade within the court's precincts to 
 any but certificated clerks.* 
 
 THE CUTCHERET WELL.t 
 
 Two patient bullocks working at a well; 
 Backward they plod and let the bucket droop 
 Until the water brims it. At the cry 
 And menacing jostle of the man who stands 
 Between them and above them, they pace down 
 The ascended slope and raise the water up. 
 
 * This couise tas now been adopted. 
 
 +The Persian wlieel is not muoh used in the C. P. ; the method of raising 
 water generally employed is that descrihed in these lines; 
 
68 
 
 IN THE C. P. 
 
 O'er the baked land in little ducts it flows, 
 And glads the bursting cabbage, or again. 
 Makes fresh, and fair the ailing artichoke. 
 Plantains look on in silence, and the plain — 
 The great, bare plain — seems barer than before ! 
 
 II. 
 ' Tis thus that salaried justice in twin shapes, 
 Civil and magisterial, yoked abreast. 
 Toils ever at the task of raising truth 
 Trom out the well that hides her, and a wash 
 Of limpid inference is poured abroad 
 To cheer the exotic virtue and make rich 
 The need and greed of India's tutored sons. 
 Statistique stands above them, and the pair. 
 Fearing a thonged reminder, plodding, moil. 
 All round, the land is barren, and no growth 
 Of grateful honesty rewards their toil. 
 
 A MUNICIPAL ELECTION. 
 
 Although it had been proclaimed, by beat of drum, a full 
 fortnight before, that the election would be held that day, the 
 people obstinately refused to come to the poll. It was dis- 
 heartening. After so many years of endeavour to acclimatize 
 British institutions, after the liberal extension of a suffrage 
 which Gladstone could not improve upon, after reading of 
 grateful constituencies and their manful support of the civic 
 opposition in other districts, it would never do to report hav- 
 ing drawn a blank. The Municipal Secretary was ready in a 
 snowy dopatta to count and record the votes ; the ex-members 
 were standing in a row in the verandah of the comimittee- 
 room ; and six electoral chatties* (one for each candidate) were 
 
 * Earthen vessels. 
 
A MUNICIPAL ELECTION. 69 
 
 flanked by a rupee's wortli of cowries.* Tlie head constable 
 (useful man) was at hand ; and he was bidden to employ his 
 influence and that of his satellites in bringing in from the high 
 ways and by-ways a sufficiency of guests for the intellectual 
 and moral banquet which the spirit of the times (aided by 
 the district officer) had spread. He cheerfully obeyed. Mean- 
 while, the Honorary Magistrate fingered the cowries and look- 
 ed scornfully at the fat Marwari who had inscribed his name 
 in the roll of petHores. The Marwari chewed ;pdn furtively, 
 and regretted the immoral ambition which had drawn him 
 away from his chintz-covered ledger. As for the Secretary, 
 he was also the head-master of the town school, had read of 
 the ballot, and was complacently satisfied to stand sentinel 
 over the apparatus of an institution which had been familiar 
 to the Romans. Still, he was anxious that a certain member 
 should lose his seat, because he had a scheme for putting a 
 little money into his assistant-master's pocket, by giving the 
 latter the execution of a survey of the town. The said mem- 
 ber was opposed to the survey, as an unnecessary expenditure. 
 Moreover, the vague definition of border-lines, which allowed 
 him to brush his teeth on the bathing slabs in rear of his 
 neighbour's premises without fear of ouster, was rather pleas- 
 ing to him than otherwise. So they thought it over silently 
 according to their lights. A hubbub announced the approach 
 of the free and independent electors, prodded on by the consta- 
 bulary. There were only twenty or thirty of them, and the 
 jemadar felt bound to explain. Falstaffi had not more difficul- 
 ty in getting recruits. "The people will not believe that 
 there is to be an election, " he said. " They think it is all a 
 dodge." A dodge — ^the glorious institution of local self-govern- 
 ment through the agency of the ballot to be characterised as 
 
 * Shells, ordinarily used as money ; but in tliis instance to be employed like 
 the pebbles used as Eoman trials, save that there were separate wmcB instead 
 of differently coloured calculi. 
 
70 IN THE C. P. 
 
 a dodge. One felt inclined to be angry "with that head con- 
 stable for speaking so bluntly. Indignation being gulped down, 
 it was more practical to ask him to develope his meaning. With 
 a mollifying salute he was preparing to do so, when a consta- 
 ble in very short pantaloons, whose wrists had Icing ago said a 
 bony adieu to his strained sleeves, broke through all ambi- 
 guities by exclaiming — " They think its pig-sticking you are 
 after!" " Fig-stioJcing ? " "Sir," said the Secretary, "a party 
 of huntsmen came here a month ago and swept ofE the avail- 
 able males to beat the covers. The people do not care for 
 that kind of work, although they are paid for it." He ap- 
 peared to be telling a true tale, for the assembled voters wore 
 a very crest- fallen air. It was emphatically explained to them 
 that it was not pig-sticking which we were after. They were 
 informed that it was now their proud privilege to choose the 
 men who, for the next three years, should administer the funds 
 of their town, should make the town's roads, the town's drains, 
 the town's cleanliness. Not a drooping head was raised ; no 
 enthusiasm glowed in their eyes. The anti-survey candidate 
 ventured on a remark. " The Sirlcar is very good, and means 
 it for your benefit." The idea flashed through the assembly. 
 "Ah, Ah! Sirlcar lei TchusM; the Sirlcar wills it for our good." 
 At the tail of the crowd a burly oil-man shouted — " That m.an 
 (pointing to the anti-survey speaker) always brushes his teeth 
 in my back-yard ; and the Honorary Magistrate will not listen 
 to my petition against him." It was like letting loose a flood. 
 Every body showed a grievance. Now was the time to rouse 
 these down-trodden folk to a sense of their own power to 
 remedy grievances, and to teach them the inestimable benefits 
 of free institutions. 
 
 Vox populi, vox Dei — ^let the popular voice but make itself 
 heard in the jiugle of cowries and chatties (mofussiHte for the 
 ballot-box), and tyrants and violators of the rights of back- 
 yard property would fall like Dagons to the ground. To this 
 
A MUNICIPAL ELECTION. 71 
 
 effect the assembly was harangued ; but whereas the close of 
 the address might well have been drowned in tumultuous 
 applause, it had no other efEect than to throw chilly silence 
 over the meeting. The electors eyed the chatties and cowries, 
 but would hare nothing to do with them. Who were they 
 to commit themselres to acts of registry which might have 
 damaging effect upon their peace and prosperity ? They 
 were crayens — ^all. Even the oil-man was cowed. It was neces- 
 sary to adopt the electoral machinery to the popular shyness, 
 and to resort to the cruder device of a show of hands. Alas ! 
 It seemed as though the sleeves of all were filled with lead, so 
 slowly and hesitatingly were the arms upraised. Six hands 
 for the Marwari, all of them belonging to humble debtors. 
 The Honorary Magistrate and his colleagues were re-elected 
 by an overwhelming majority, in the tale of which it is 
 doubtful whether the sis debtors were not included ; for, 
 not to appear singular, they raised their arms with the mass. 
 What a cheerful bustle of dispersion followed ! Then, when the 
 last elector had left the premises, the nominees of a grateful 
 municipality turned into their committee-room. They forth- 
 with passed a resolution that the oil- man should be prosecuted 
 before the Honorary Magistrate for keeping his premises in an 
 unclean condition. 
 
72 IN THE C. P. 
 
 THE OLD MARWARI.* 
 
 I. 
 
 It was an old Marwari, 
 Game near his time to die ; 
 So sick was lie and sorrj 
 He laid liis ledger by. 
 No tiioiigL.ts had he of Heaven 
 Nought reeked he e'en of hell ; 
 His nature's pious leaven 
 Was to keep his hisabf well ! 
 
 II. 
 His books were balanced neatly, 
 His Punji Tdiatd% showed 
 A big sum clear completely 
 Of everything he owed. 
 His kinsfolk hovered round him 
 Like vultures of the air, 
 But e'er a knave could sound him 
 He tricked them with an heir! 
 
 III. 
 " The old luck of my people — 
 I've no son of my own ; 
 But blithely springs the peepul 
 From a ruined tower of stone ! 
 This lad whom now I credit 
 Shall take fortune from my side — ' 
 He "booked" it as he said it — 
 Laid down the pen and died ! § 
 
 * Money-lender form Marwar, in Central India, 
 + Accounts. 
 
 I Capital Acoonnt Book. 
 
 § Among Marwaris the act of adoption is not complete till the son adopted 
 has been duly "hooked" to credit. 
 
i DISPENSARY MEETINfl. 73 
 
 A DISPENSARY MEETING, 
 
 The Collector has been trying to make our dispensary more 
 of a popular institution. It has long been popular in the 
 sense that people have freely resorted to it for medicines ; 
 but, hitherto, the persons thus advantaged have omitted 
 to offer to the house of pharmacy any valuable return. As 
 many of them are "well-to-do, it is plain that the omission ia 
 dae to their not having been properly invited to contribute. 
 As for those healthy individuals who never stand in need of 
 drugs, they cannot be expected to subscribe a quid pro quo, 
 the pro quo being wanting. He is therefore finding them a 
 pro quo. The privilege of self-government is with all liberal 
 peoples a good equivalent for liability to rates and taxes ; and 
 he exhibits to the drug-abstaining townsmen (already edu- 
 cated by municipal freedom) the liberty they may enjoy 
 of canvassing all expenditure by the mouths of special 
 representatives. They are responding to his advances ; and I 
 do not remember a more fatiguing morning than that which 
 we spent lately in haggling over the elimination of some 
 worn-out hospital bedding. This haggling was a sign of 
 healthy interest, and we were grateful for it, though fagged. 
 Carrying the principle of self-government still further, he does 
 not venture to assess contributions ex cathedra, but calls upon 
 the respectable townsfolk in council assembled to fix each 
 person's liability upon a consideration of his means. He also 
 takes into accQunt what may be termed the appetitio medi- 
 cince of the individual nam.ed ; reviewing to that end the fre- 
 quency of the latter's visits to the dispensary as testified to 
 by the assistant in charge. The process of assessment upon 
 this voluntary system is not without its humours, as the fol- 
 lowing notes may indicate. 
 
74 IN THE 0. P. 
 
 We, of the dispensary committee, sit on cliairs in the room 
 we have dignified with the name of the public library ; and the 
 pnbHc who have come to be assessed are accommodated with 
 benches. Two of ottr number are not. so used to chairs but 
 that they sometimes forget the attitude for which these pieces 
 of furniture are designed. The old Malguzar of this pros- 
 perous town, whom the changes wrought by time are daily 
 driving into a more settled melancholy and a fonder attach- 
 ment to a faded umbrella, draws up one leg under him in 
 bird-fashion, leaving the umbrella, which supports his chin, 
 to answer for the missing member to the company. The 
 Naib-Tahsildar in moments of abstraction dra,ws up both 
 legs, and becomes temporarily a likeness of Gautama Buddha. 
 The Tahsildar* knows better. He is a proud man ; and is 
 careful to avoid any laxity of manners in the presence of a 
 Mussulman ghee-dealer with tinted finger nails, who sits 
 opposite to him. This rich parvenu is a man of sense not- 
 withstanding ; and his tinted nails are his only foppery. He 
 looks like a portly merchant-man ; and the small Marwari 
 who sits in a huddled posture by his side, might pass for 
 the bum-boat which brings him provisions. 
 
 Hadjee, Bora, is called from the benches to the public table. 
 A pen is put into his hand. What sum will he be good enough 
 to note down with that pen as his annual subscription to the 
 dispensary ? Hadjee hesitates. He is a tall, thin man with 
 a sallow visage, narrow, peering eyes, and a piping voice. He 
 looks decidedly unhealthy. Reference is made to the Hospi- 
 tal Assistant. " Oh, yes ; he is a constant visitor — consumes 
 many pounds of drugs every month." There is no doubt 
 that Hadjee ought to come down handsomely. Voices (most- 
 ly Hindu) cry suggestively, "twenty rupees — ^twenty-five 
 rupees!" Other voices (mostly Mahomedan) shout " twelve 
 
 * Native Deputy Colleetor. 
 
A DIStENSAET MSETINS, 75 
 
 rupees!" Hadjee peers nervously round the assembly; and 
 ■witha grating laugh, as though it were a good joke, screeches 
 "twenty rupees! — ^he-, he! — ^how can I afford so much? I 
 am a very poor man. Six rupees is all I can give." At 
 this there is universal indignation. But Hadjee is stubborn, 
 and laughs his forced laugh. The pen is taken from his hand. 
 " Stop his drugs," says the Collector. The Hospital Assistant 
 makes a note ; and Hadjee goes back, murmuring, to his seat, 
 with a look like that of a trapped lynx. 
 
 The next person who comes forward is a different style of 
 man. Ithoba, Teli,- has a fine broad chest and muscular 
 arms, scantily draped by a soiled dopatta. He has carefully 
 laid aside his gold bracelets and finger rings, but the massive 
 girdle of sUver chain- work about his waist relieves his other- 
 wise poverty-stricken aspect. He tells the Collector that he 
 got it cheap. The Tahsildar observes that this is a very well- 
 to-do man ; and that ordinarily he is well dressed in clean rai- 
 ment, and sports many ornaments. The crowd on the benches 
 evidently enjoy the jest implied in the oil-man's ingenious 
 get-up. "But," says Ithoba, " I am never ill : I have never 
 taken medicine in my life !" " Consider the virtue of chari- 
 ty!" exclaims the ghee-dealer. The oil-man does not quite 
 seem to see it; but, nevertheless, being a good-humoured 
 person, he makes a mark denoting his oil-press opposite a 
 subscription of twelve rupees, and swings carelessly back to 
 his place. 
 
 He is succeeded by one or two beggarly-looking fellows 
 who have affected the same kind of disguise. 
 
 They are identified, however, as respectable citizens by the 
 Malguzar, who croaks laconically from his resting place — 
 " yeh acche admi hain !" 
 
 The deception being now understood, proves an unprofitable 
 one to the mumniers ; for the public will not listen to their 
 protestations of penury. 
 
76 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Here is a talkative clotli-seller, who insists on addressing 
 the meeting in true oratorical manner, one arm aloft, like a 
 Bmtus of the theatre. " Hear me for my cause, &o." "Well, 
 have done with it, and put down what you will, and so make 
 room for a more likely man !" 
 
 Is this a more likely man ? He has his oratory, too, but it 
 is of a dumb kind. With a visage of smiling deference an 
 old Hindu gentleman in a skull cap comes cringingly forward 
 and embraces the boots of the Civil Surgeon, mistaking them 
 for those of the Collector. " Ghareeb pariuar !" he sighs, 
 rather than says, with a gasping emphasis on the first sylla- 
 ble. Gautama Buddha comes down from his pedestal, and 
 says that this man is an usurer and has many naoney-bags. 
 The old gentleman has no breath for utterance : he can only 
 shake his wrinkled pippin of a head, and wave his hands 
 abroad with a silent vehemence of negation. He is pacified 
 with a moderate assessment ; and after again falling effusively 
 upon the Doctor's boots, he retires backwards with a bow at 
 every step. 
 
 The little Marwari whom I have descriptively likened to 
 a provision boat, comes to the front now in the fulfilment of a 
 task which bears some relation to the functions of the master 
 of such a craft. He is the committee's purveyor of hospital 
 supplies, and notes have to be compared between him and the 
 Compounder, who has been checking the stores taken in. 
 It is, as it were, a 'tween-deck settlement between purser 
 and bum-boat man. Both individuals have written all the 
 items of their account on curiously small pieces of paper, and 
 are consequently much put to it to decipher them. The 
 Compounder is afilicted with a blank eye which " slcelUes" 
 terribly on the beholder. The blunders and disputes of the 
 pair, and the Gorgon head of one of them, are too much for 
 the occupants of the chairs. The Compounder is made to 
 take hasty refuge with his runic scrap behind the body of 
 
QUEEN-EMPRBSS VS. BUFFALO. 77 
 
 the Civil Surgeon ; and the little Marwari plumps down be- 
 tween two substantial persons of his own trade, who now dwarf 
 him in aspect as they have dwarfed him in business, and 
 whose towering houses on each side of his humble shop 
 have dwarfed and crowded out its pretensions to be a place for 
 the sale of goods. His post of purveyor is taken from him, 
 and his accounts are referred to a sub-committee. " 8io 
 transit ^o." 
 
 QUEEN-EMPRESS vs. BUFFALO. 
 
 I. 
 This was a famous case. A buffalo 
 Had trespassed on a humble ryot's fields. 
 Trampling jowarry, Jcudjci, or Jcodo 
 (No matter what the crop) and spoiled the yield. 
 
 II. 
 The beast was captured, but no man could tell 
 Who was its owner. It had strayed from far, 
 And had no story that the crowd could spell, 
 But aloud bellow — move of love than war. 
 
 III. 
 What should be done ? Could ruin be endured 
 Without revenge ? Better to prosecute 
 The horned oppressor who this loss procured. 
 And strike the unknown master through the brute. 
 
 IV. 
 
 So before Titus Trifler, E. A. C* 
 (Most learned lawyer, able Magistrate) 
 The case came on as quickly as might be. 
 Seeing the accused was ramping at the gate ! 
 
 * Extra Assistant Commissioner. 
 
78 IN THE C. P. 
 
 v. 
 Section 427 — ^MiscMef Wrought — 
 By -well-skilled witnesses appraised at more 
 Tlian rupees fifty. To tlie charge, as brought, 
 What says accused ? " — The answer was — a roar ! 
 
 TI. 
 
 The Court's Interpreter assured the court 
 
 That the " Buff" pleaded " guilty." Ill at ease, 
 
 Heedful of fiery eye and angry snort, 
 
 The Judge gave sentence — " Fine of Fifty Rupees." 
 
 TII. 
 
 " And if not paid, accused himself to be 
 
 Sold as a chattel on a _/?-/« writ ! " 
 
 This said, the court adjourned — the bull broke free. 
 
 And twenty bailiifs still are after it ! 
 
 OUR KALLAR.* 
 
 He is but an ordinary-looking villager, undistinguishable 
 from the other folk of the hamlet by his wearing-cloth, or his 
 puggree, and the stranger canform no notion by looking at him 
 of what an important person he is. His drinking shop and his 
 distillery are both of them mean places. The former is better 
 leeped f than the neighbouring houses. It is an open chamber, 
 facing the street ; and on the low mud partition which forms 
 the bar, there are arranged certain miscellaneous jars and 
 bottles which announce that spirits may be had within. The 
 said spirits are contained in an old commissariat-barrel bung- 
 ed with rag. A tin tablet, upon which accounts are scratch- 
 ed, hangs upon the wall and completes the furniture. If you 
 
 * Distiller of country spirits. 
 + Plastered with mud. 
 
OUB KALLAE. • 79 
 
 call out tlie proprietor of this unpretending gin-shop, and 
 question him as to his trade, he will, of course, complain of 
 hard times. Government now-a-days screws such a lot out 
 of him, that he is obliged to water his spirits, and yet charge 
 an anna more per bottle than he used to do. In consequence, 
 his custom is declining. He will agree with you if you sug- 
 gest that his rival, the proprietor of the opium-shop, is draw- 
 ing away his trade ; but he probably knows nothing at all about 
 it. He leaves all that to the chief excise-man, whom he hates 
 in his inmost soul. In old days he distilled when he chose, 
 and what he chose; and he owned the madalc* and the ganjaf 
 shops as well as the gin-shop. The chief excise-man has 
 changed all that. The triple alliance has been dissolved, and 
 the drugs are his keen rivals for the popular favour. As for 
 his dear old distillery, it has undergone a drastic change. The 
 very name of it is unfamiliar. It used to be called an " out- 
 still," probably because it was outside of official supervision. 
 Now it is called a " contract-still," which means that he and 
 the officials are continually in business contract ; it is a tum- 
 ble-down shed, blocked with open hogsheads containing 
 mhowa J in various stages of ferment ; and four copper vats 
 warming on four mud stoves. Bach vat has a distilling siphon 
 wrapped round with dirty rags, which are kept moist by an 
 attendant. The whole place reeks with a peculiar odour, part 
 yeasty, part drunken, part rotten — and a painful suspicion of 
 shabby trickery hangs about it. Perhaps the suspicion is 
 born of our own fertile imaginings, for we are always watch- 
 ing our kallar, and crediting him with innumerable rogueries. 
 The interests at stake, you see, are so important. Little as 
 the outsider may imagine it, this man holds, so to speak, . the 
 morality of thousands in the hollow of his vat. The trouble he 
 
 * A preparation of opium. 
 
 + A preparation of the hemp plant, higUy intoxicant. 
 
 J .The flower of the mhowa tree (hassia latif olia) from which a spirit is distilled. 
 
80 IN THE C. P. 
 
 gives as is immense. We figure him and his attendants chant- 
 ing round their hell-broth, like the witches in Macbeth : — 
 " Double, double, toil and trouble. 
 Fire burn and cauldron bubble ! — " 
 And anon : — 
 
 " By the pricking of my thum.bs, 
 Something wicked this way comes ! " 
 the " something wicked" being the chief excise-man or the Col- 
 lector and his assistant seen through the distorting ruists of 
 guilt. We justify our inquisitorial office by peering into all 
 the mhowa hogsheads, stirring up the wash with our sticks, 
 examining the stamp on the vats, dropping a measuring- 
 rod into the spirit barrels, calling for the receipts for duty 
 paid, and asking one-and-twenty questions about the business 
 and its management. When we have thoroughly satisfied 
 ourselves that there is something wrong somewhere, and 
 thoroughly impressed the kallar with the idea that we think 
 him a scoundrel (but intend, with heaven's help, to outwit 
 him) , we write a long memorandum, to this effect in the visi- 
 tors' book, which is kept at the neighbouring police post, and 
 go home with mixed feelings of joy in ourselves and disgust 
 at the wickedness of man. 
 
 For, look you, it is a hard thing, when you have carefully 
 calculated your averages, to find a wretched individual in- 
 stance rise up and figuratively knock you down before you are 
 aware of its purpose. When, by anxiously- wrought ont esti- 
 m.ates, you have made your kallar contract with you on the 
 basis that his utmost possible outturn is five brews per diem, 
 it is both exasperating and appalling to find that he is able 
 to brew a sixth : exasperating because of the higher contract — 
 charge which the Government might have stipulated had it 
 known this possible : appalling because of the thought that 
 that same sixth brew will positively pass untaxed into the 
 world of drinkers. It is as terrible to some of us as the omis- 
 
OUR KALLAE. 81 
 
 sion of baptism at the earliest moment is to believers in infant 
 dam^nation. This sixtb barrel wliich. has escaped the sanctify- 
 ing sacrament of taxation is a horrible heathen thing, capable 
 of spreading inestimable woe. Orrme vafer vitium illi circum 
 jpectora, &c., and how to exorcise the evil ? 
 
 We are torn with dissensions on this point. A kind of war 
 of the Fronde rages on our district borders , and wordy battles 
 are fought in the distilleries. The armouries of jurisprudence 
 and of alcoholic literature are ransacked to find tis weapons, 
 and Jeremy Bentham is on the stage with Richardson. Pacts 
 cease to be stubborn things with us : we make them pliant, or 
 are ready with our jeer, — tant pis pour les faits! Thus, the 
 untaxed sixth barrel or brew — ^what of it ? It is at once an 
 infraction of the noble rule of getting a maximum of revenue 
 from a minimum of consumption ; and the vehicle for the 
 accomplishment of that principle in fact, by enabling the dis- 
 tiller to work at a profit and to bid higher for the monopoly at 
 the next auction. It is at once the palladiwm of morality by 
 making possible the sale of unwatered liquor, and so staving 
 off the rush of the stimulant-seeking multitude towards madaJe 
 and ganja ; and it is the pestilent heresy which retrogrades 
 towards outstills, and that life according to nature which finds 
 drunken Gonds beneath the palm-trees. The poor kallar stands 
 dumb with astonishment, and cannot make it out at all. 
 While we are talking, his profits do not grow bigger ; nor is it 
 a consolation to him that some of us take his side on the sixth 
 barrel question, when our partizanship effects nothing more 
 than prosiness, or perhaps even verse, as the following 
 selected stanza will evidence : — 
 
 Oh, daru,* dear daru, the fire of my youth 
 Has died with the fire that is no more in thee ! 
 For the arts of excise-men have poisoned thy truth. 
 And a cup of ditch- water's the liquor for me ! 
 
 Spirituoua liquor. 
 
82 IH THE C. P. 
 
 Can madak and ganja give ploughmen good cheer ? 
 O darv,, dear daru, why art thou so dear ? 
 
 "Why ? — ^Because of the predominance of the sixth barrel 
 principle, of course ! 
 
 DAT AFTER DAY. 
 
 I. 
 
 Day after day I rise and see 
 The withered grass, the stunted tree. 
 The rock-bound ridges, wrapt in haze, 
 The still pool festering in the blaze — 
 
 Day after day ! 
 n. 
 
 Day after day, through glare and heat, 
 I seek a thankless Judgment seat 
 And hear, until my sick brain reels. 
 The endless babble of Vakeels — 
 
 Day after day t 
 III. 
 
 Day after day, and no step won ! 
 " OfE reckonings " keep the Colonels on — 
 Like limpets to a sea-trailed rope 
 Captains and Majors cling to hope, 
 
 Day after day ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 An oyster on a windlorn reef 
 Were blithe as I — and I would Uef 
 That mollusc be — 'Twould please me well 
 To round a pearl within my shell. 
 
 Day after day ! 
 
A PRISON CONFERENCE. 83 
 
 A PRISON CONFERENCE. 
 
 The Superintendeiit of the Jail crowed so mockingly over 
 the station Magistrates, because of certain things which had 
 been said in high quarters about their want of courage in 
 punishing old offenders, that the latter grew wroth. 
 
 They vowed that the fault of leniency was within Wie Jail 
 walls, and not outside of it; and their awards were based upon 
 a theory of prison discipline which was not carried out in fact. 
 "Imprisonment," said they, "is supposed to be as bitter as poi- 
 son to the rebel spirit which suffers it; and in dealing with 
 poisons, one must be careful about the dose. To hastily dou- 
 ble it, might involve evil consequences ; whereas a slight addi- 
 tion to the amount of the former draught ought to answer all 
 ends, if only the medicament is potent." So they "resolved on 
 a visit to the Jail, that they might vindicate their tenets in the 
 face of existent facts. The Superintendent was averse from 
 taking it gravely ; for he preferred anecdotic lore to dry discus- 
 sion, and the Junior Magistrate was prone to levity ; but the 
 Head of the District put all frivolity aside with a sternness 
 worthy of the bench. They proceeded thus : — The Su^perinten- ; 
 denL — " These are my oil mills. What harder labour could you 
 have than this ? It is as though you combined the toil of the 
 pestle and mortar with that of the bathing-machine windlass. 
 That reminds me — I will tell you a most extraordinary story of 
 a bathing-machine." The Senior Magistrate, — " Pardon me. I 
 must here point out that the working of this ugly-looking en- 
 gine is tempered by amenities which considerably impair its 
 punitive value. There is the perception of useful results ac- 
 cruing to labour expended, which is always agreeable to the 
 mind ; and there is the sympathetic alloy of companionship in 
 travail. Now if each of these convicts who are — " The Junior 
 Magistrate, — " Rubbing galled shoulders like the hacks in a 
 
84 IN THE C. P. 
 
 ticca-garry ?" Senior Magistrate. — " I accept the illustration. 
 Do not the tired yoke-fellows whinny to each other, and nudge 
 noses at the end of a stage ? Put one of them in shafts, and 
 half his gameness will be gone. In the same way, these ener- 
 getic fellows would be much more doleful over their work if 
 they were put in single harness and wore blinkers." Junior 
 Magistrate. — "And had bits in their mouths and bearing-reins 
 on their necks ? " Senior Magistrate. — " That would be a ser- 
 vile and unnecessary imitation of the paraphernalia proper to 
 horses. The points to be insisted on are concealment of the 
 result of labour and seclusion of the individual. The lot of a 
 prisoner should be as bitter as possible ; and nothing is more 
 bitter than lone unproductive task- work as monotonous in its 
 undistracted round as the wiudlass-path of that bathing-ma- 
 chine horse to which the Superintendent referred." Superin- 
 tendent. — " Tou will hardly believe the story, but it is a fact. 
 "Were you ever at Brighton ? Well, the horse that used to 
 pull up the machines there, was a white horse ; and every 
 Sabbath, on the Sfeyne, its gaunt form used to be con- 
 spicuous from a distance, as it went diligently round and round 
 in an opposite direction to that in which it circled on week 
 days. It was obliged to do this to correct the accumulated 
 giddiness of the seven days preceding." Senior Magistrate. — 
 "I should like to see our prisoners doing the same. One may 
 pick up many hints in this way from the sufferings of the ani- 
 mal creation. The forced exercise of the squirrel or white 
 mouse in its revolving cage, doubtless suggested the treadmill." 
 Superintendent. — "But these prisoners, who are grinding corn 
 in sentry-boxes, bolt upright at their work : surely their pun- 
 ishment could not be made more severe ?" Senior Magistrate. 
 — "It is a good device, but has one defect ; their labour pro- 
 duces distinct quantitative results under their very eyes. There 
 is a certain gratification to be derived from watching a pile of 
 grain gradually triturated into flour of a required fineness nn- 
 
A PRISON CONFERENCE. 85 
 
 der the stress employed. If these men had to turn wall- winches, 
 the punitive effect would be far stronger. The winches might 
 be connected by means of cog-wheels and iron rods, with a 
 large mill outside the jail ; and though the fact that they were 
 doing real work would be known to the convicts, yet the plea- 
 sure of observing its progress would be entirely absent." 
 ■Junior Magistrate. — " The thing has been tried at home ; but I 
 have not heard that crime was extirpated in consequence. Per- 
 haps Peter Taylor stepped in." Superintendent. — " I Vras at 
 home at the time. Some were for abolishing the system, others 
 for modifying its use. One humanitarian recommended that if 
 the winches were retained, they should be made to turn musi- 
 cal barrels fitted into the walls of the cells, so that hard labour 
 should attune palms, and select melodies of a kind fitted to 
 elevate and refine. The experiment was tried; but it was not 
 found possible to determine satisfactorily what kind of tunes 
 would soothe particular individuals into the receptive con- 
 dition requisite for the absoi-ption of noble ideas. Six hours of 
 the " Old Hundredth" induced a violent fit of profanity in the 
 old burglar who ground it ; and the same effect was caused by 
 an hour's performance of one of Bach's fugues in the case of 
 a gentleman-forger." Senior Magistrate. — "Lamentable. I do 
 not hold that crime can be extirpated by any system of mere 
 punishments. It may, however, be controlled more eflGiciently 
 and economically than it is at present. If, apart from the 
 monitory effects which legal sentences exercise on the crimi- 
 nally incUnod, it be intended that punishment should leave a 
 deterrent impression on the offender, an acute rather than a 
 chronic form of discipline should be adopted. 
 
 A sharp corrective strikes deep, and affects the imagination ; 
 whereas a long-sustained chastisement of a more moderate kind 
 only dulls the sensibility of the sufferer." Junior Magistrate. — 
 " Aye, aye, the thumb-screws and the rack, instead of hand- 
 mills and rope-making machines. For ,my part, I think tor- 
 
86 IN" THE C. P. 
 
 ture miglit well be re-introduced into our prisons — not for tlie 
 old object of extracting confessions, taut for the more philoso- 
 phic purpose of inculcating the lesson which every child has 
 learnt who has once burned its finger. Boni do it again 
 should be underscored with a smarting line like that which 
 the rattan leaves on the pilferer's back. Must penal ingenuity 
 stop short at the whip ?" Superintendent. — " I always rub 
 in a little salt. It stings, but heals." Senior Magistrate. 
 " The brank, the spiked collar, and the iron boot might all 
 be brought upon the list of punitive devices, but for the fact 
 that if forms of acute punishment are made too acute, we over- 
 shoot the ma,rk, and produce a lively sense of injury in the 
 patient, instead of a sorrowful repentance. The manually cor- 
 rected child is stung into resentment, and sometimes kicks its 
 parent ; and that wholesome impression which a more imper- 
 sonal penalty might have produced, is overlaid with a brooding 
 sense of the tyranny of strength over weakness." Junior Ma- 
 gistrate. — " When my nurse whipped me I hated her ; when she 
 imprisoned me in the cupboard, I expended my wrath on the 
 cupboard." Senior Magistrate. — With treadmill and the winch 
 worked in solitude, and with concealment of the results of la- 
 bour, I am of opinion that we might considerably reduce our 
 average terms of imprisonment for all kinds of offences, and 
 effect a saving in the cost of Jails without impairing the effi- 
 ciency of the punishment. Where a convict now spends a year 
 in making ropes, dusters, and carpets, and in other occupations 
 highly pleasing to the visitors' eye, taut scarcely corrective 
 enough for the offender, he might with equally good results 
 pass three months in turning an unseen mill tay means of a 
 treadle. The recollection of his experience in the latter case 
 would have a deeper taite upon his tarain than the memory 
 of hours whiled away with the shuttle and loom." Junior 
 Magistrate. — " The fact is, that the confinement of a convict 
 for a long period within Jail walls is ordinarily looked upon 
 
A PRISON CONFERENCE. 87 
 
 as the main part of his pimishment, and the • daily task to be 
 allotted him there is but supplementary to this ; whereas you 
 ■would regard the Jail but as the arena or torture-room, wherein 
 the really telling corrective may be conveniently applied ?" 
 Senior Magistrate. — " Exactly ; only do not call it a torture- 
 room, as the word ' torture ' has an excessive connotation. 
 Disciplinary punishments lie in the direction of torture, but 
 do not touch it. Some of them go very near — as whipping, 
 when the subject is thin-skinned." Superintendent. — " But 
 the longer a confirmed scoundrel is kept shut up from mis- 
 chief, the better. Where would be the gain in letting him 
 loose speedily ? I do not believe in the reformation of prison 
 birds. When I was in Dublin" — Senior Magistrate. — " Neither 
 do I. In shutting up a convict for a long term, however, his 
 past misdeeds are at present looked to, and not the pro- 
 priety of secluding him for any particular period from the 
 world. If more attention were given to the latter consider- 
 ation, he would, in a large number of cases, be imprisoned for 
 life. Although, therefore, I recommended short and sharp 
 sentence for offenders who have not been convicted more 
 than once, I hold that a man who is caught a third time in 
 the act of breaking the laws which have been twice empha- 
 sized on his person and liberty, should be regarded as in- 
 corrigible and incarcerated for the rest of his days. To shut 
 him up for five or seven years is only to temporize with evil, 
 and upon his release there will be no end of trouble in looking 
 after him and recapturing him when he sins." JvMior Magis- 
 trate. — "Alas for personal right and the sacred liberty of the 
 subject! But how about budget provision ? Tour savings upon 
 early-released prisoners would be all swallowed up in main- 
 taining the life-termers. Prisoners do not pay.'' Senior Magis- 
 trate. — " Because the two ideas of punishment — according to 
 one of which penal discipline is composed of hard jail-tasks 
 in addition to jail confinement, and according to the other. 
 
88 IN THE C. P. 
 
 a lengthy term of imprisonment is held, to warrant a pro- 
 portional reduction in the ordinary burden imposed — are not 
 kept sufficiently distinct. Labour is muddled away upon 
 what are primarily prison duties, and not commercially pay- 
 ing enterprises. Given a large body of life prisoners, and 
 employ them one and all, as the ' hands ' of a factory, entirely 
 on some business requiring division of labour, and surely you 
 could make a profit ? The cost of watch and ward could hard- 
 ly exceed the sum which would be consumed in the wages of 
 workmen in a private business." Junior Magistrate.—" Ask at 
 Hazareebagh." Superintendent. — " When I was in Dublin, an 
 Egyptian scholar, whose brain was rather turned by the study 
 of hieroglyphics, published a scheme for the pacification of 
 Ireland by employing prison labour to revive in the city the 
 glories of Luxor and Karnac. He suggested that the Princes 
 of Wales might be sepulchred in pyramids like those of Ghi- 
 zeh, to be erected in Phoenix Park." Senior Magistrate. — 
 " We must be going. Good morning, friend." Junior Magis- 
 trate. — Ta-ta, Doctor." 
 
 THE WRONG GHAT.* 
 
 Oh Mahadev ! in thy sacred name 
 What things are done ! Thy Brahmins shame 
 The stream which from thy long lock flows, 
 And past the ghats of Kashi goes — 
 Cursed by the priest who soiled thy fame 
 And fooled thy slave when there he came ! 
 
 * Bathing-stairs : of whioh there are many on the hanks of the Ganges at 
 Kashi, or Benares. The rirer is fabled to flow from the head of Mahadev, 
 or Siva : and Brahmin priests take toll of the pilgrims who flock to its banks 
 to bathe. 
 
THE WEONG GHAT. 89 
 
 II. 
 
 He led me down to the iraknown shore 
 
 With many a mvmtra mutterd o'er, 
 
 Blessed me with tears, as I waded in. 
 
 And cleansed my soul, while I cleansed my skin. 
 
 With "shlohs" and fragments of Vedic lore 
 
 Tastefully culled from his private store ! 
 
 III. 
 
 ShiTering, I thought — " My soul is saved !" 
 Then I scrambled out. My head was shaved. 
 And the priest with chandon and tumeric, 
 On breast and belly bedaubed me thick, 
 And painted the teeica my forehead craved 
 Red as the banner which o'er us waved ! 
 
 IT. 
 
 I gave him silver and gauds in fee 
 And left the gh&t in righteous glee ; 
 But ere I reached my lonely inn 
 I felt the sore load of my sin 
 Return — Great Ganges, could it be ? 
 An ague had got hold of me ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Forgive the lips which pain made quiver ! 
 Thou wert not, Mahadev, the giver 
 Of the fierce pangs which thou didst seem — 
 I had not bathed in Ganga's stream ; 
 Tricked by the Priest (God rend his liver !) 
 I'd dipt into the Burna* river ! 
 
 * The Bnrna falls into the Ganges at Benares. 
 
90 IN THE C. P. 
 
 MUNICIPAL SORROWS. 
 
 It was a noble idea, born of the historic sense and of love 
 of humanity — 
 
 " From out the storied past, and used 
 
 Within the present, but transfused 
 
 Through future time by power of thought " 
 that gave the privileges of a Municipium to Kamalpur. 
 Memories of the glory of the free cities of Lombardy and of the 
 stubborn independence of the Hanse towns floated through the 
 Secretariat mind as the decree was framed. Enthusiam was 
 stronger than the philosophic warnings which familiarly rang — 
 
 " O pamper not a hasty time. 
 
 Nor feed with crude imaginings 
 
 The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, 
 
 That every sophister can lime 1" 
 and the Tahsildar, the Hospital Assistant, the Honorary Ma- 
 gistrate, and the biggest bania of the town, were made into a 
 Municipal Committee. The school-master was Secretary, for 
 he was the only one who would write English, and make the 
 proceedings of the Committee clearly intelligible at head- 
 quarters. It was with great difiiculty that the hania could 
 be got to act, for he feared a serious interruption to his ordi- 
 nary business, but was soon persuaded of the groundlessness 
 of his fear. 
 
 Behold, then, the callow Municipium fairly started on 
 its lofty way, heralded with Gazette notices, and beckoned to 
 renown by the far-seen phantom of an Annual Report. Pros- 
 perity attend it ! But let us remember that in these days of 
 transition — 
 
 "A slow develop'd strength awaits 
 Completion in a painful school ; " 
 and it was not long before the school-master found out 
 
MUNICIPAL SOREOWS. 91 
 
 tke paiufulness of it. The committee -woiild not come toge- 
 ther. The hania was engaged, or the Honorary Magis- 
 trate was seedy, or the Tahsildar was on tour. 
 
 When, by great exertions, the Secretary had collected the 
 pack, they refused to hunt — declined altogether, that is to aay, 
 to frame leges municipales, preferring to talk scandal and to 
 indulge in personal recrimination. " Sir,'' he pitifully wrote 
 to the District Officer, " I pray you let me cease to be Secre- 
 tary, for the members will not sign the record of their proceed- 
 ings which I write, saying that they never said the things which 
 I have written. Now, this is unworthy both of them and of 
 me, and my honour is dear to me," The District Officer had 
 to make a flying journey to the place and hold a meeting of 
 the committee. He explained to them, ttieir duties and privi- 
 leges. They were to levy taxes and keep a clean and orderly 
 town with the proceeds. Also, they might make roads and 
 build a school, if they had money enough. He left th«m his 
 official blessing and an injunction to be more tender to the 
 feelings of the Secretary. 
 
 The privilege of taxing oneself is greatly prized by western 
 peoples ; but it has scarcely the same charm for the eastern 
 mind. So when the Secretary, who had been reading the 
 Gazette^ wherein the acts of other municipalities were recorded, 
 suggested a house-tax, the Honorary Magistrate and the 
 hania were peremptory in negation. Both had large houses, 
 and would not endure that they should be assessed for them. 
 A bazaar-tax was equally abominable in their eyes, for both 
 had stalls in the market. 
 
 " Better tax strangers than our own good citizens," was the 
 cry ; and so an octroi scheme was carried unanimously. The 
 Secretary recorded that, as the many traders who bring goods 
 to the town enjoy the facilities of its streets and market, it is 
 but right and proper they should contribute something. The 
 hania took care that the rate on ghee (which he imported) 
 
92 IN THE C. P. 
 
 shoTild not be too higli ; and the "Honorary Magistrate looked , 
 after the interest of piece-goods. The proposals so plausibly 
 made were duly sanctioned by the District Officer and his 
 superiors, and ultimately appeared in the pages of the Gazette. 
 Now aU went smoothly for a time with the Municipality, if 
 not with its Secretary. A handsom.e income flowed into its 
 coffers. The school-master found himself an engineer of 
 roads and an architect of public buildings. The Honorary 
 Magistrate and the hania became the heads of two powerful 
 factions representing the interests of rival contractors for 
 works. The contractors attended the committee-meetings 
 to back their tenders, and stormy discussions were the 
 result. The Secretary reported to the District Officer that 
 "it is painful to me to write down the words which the 
 non-official members use to each other and to myself. They 
 are men- ignorant of the noble arts of Macadam and Chris- 
 topher Wren, and yet presume to meddle with the pucca 
 drains that I am making. I will be obliged to resign, &c." 
 Again the District Officer had to appear on the scene. He 
 dismissed the swindling contractors, arranged for the services of 
 an Overseer, and insisted on the committee's leaving its Secre- 
 tary leisure to attend to his pedagogic duties. Por a brief 
 time the benefit of his instructions endured ; but a worse 
 thing shortly befell. In an unfortunate hour for itself, the 
 Municipality took a census of its inhabitants, the results of 
 which came to the knowledge of the Supreme Grovernment. 
 That Government had a carefully- prepared table on hafid, 
 showing exactly how many pounds of ghee, how many yards 
 of piece-goods an average Hindoo should consume in the year. 
 Taking the total annual imports of these commodities into the 
 town of Kamalpur, and dividing the figure by the total cen- 
 sus, the Government was horrified to find that the imports 
 exceeded the outside limit of possible local consumption. 
 Plainly, then, the wretched Municipality was levying a tran- 
 
MUNICIPAL SOEEOWS. , 93 
 
 sit tax on trade — a thing denounced and abhorred by all the 
 Smiths, McCullochs, Bastiats, Rogers, and Fawcetts that have 
 ever lived and lectured. A terrible letter was written to the 
 " locals," and winged Mercury came with all speed to Kamalpur. 
 The bania and the Honorary Magistrate protested that, being 
 dealers in ghee and piece-goods, they did not find the octroi 
 at all inconvenient, for they feared greatly the imposition of 
 a house-tax. After a protracted debate and correspondence, 
 it was settled that a liberal system of refunds upon exports 
 should be instituted, and the octroi saved for the present. 
 Upon the introduction of this rule ensued a sad season of decay 
 in the Municipality, which will best be described by the follow- 
 ing quotations from a letter from the Secretary to the District 
 Officer : — "All here," he wrote, "is in confusion and immoral- 
 ity and decadence. The Honorary Magistrate has been abusing 
 the bye-laws by fining the hania for a nuisance which he never 
 committed. This is offensive to God and man. Nor is this 
 all. The bania has got a tool of his made Octroi Darogah ; and 
 what refunds he would, so many he gets. Many passes are 
 forged and uttered. Now the Honorary Magistrate dare not 
 report of it to you, for he fears the bania will speak of the 
 realizations of bad debts which he (the Honorary Magistrate) 
 by wicked working of the bye-laws, has been able to effect. 
 So all remains in darkness and shame. They make their profit 
 by the new rules, while I and the unhappy town are the only 
 sufferers. For my time is wholly taken up in writing re- 
 fund-orders, so that I have been reproved by the District Ins- 
 pector for the -bad attendance-average at m.y school. How 
 can I be running after the missing scholars, while the great 
 river of refunds is ever rolling on past my desk, and keeping 
 me, as it were, enisled ? I grieve to say that whereas we once 
 had fine metalled roads and good drains, now these things 
 are no longer visible ; we have no money to do anything, and 
 aU is in ruins. What is the use of this large establishment 
 
94 IN THE C. P. 
 
 of mohurirs and peons, wlio only gather money at one gate 
 ■which is paid back again at the other ? The few drops out of 
 this transit-flow that remain within the town are not snificient 
 to water the roads, I pray your honour to give this matter 
 your kind attention. His honour did. The Secretary's re- 
 marks about the transit-flow seemed to him very apposite. 
 The emasculated octroi system, which takes ■wdth one hand 
 and gives with the other, is an anomaly without logical base. 
 If the aim is merely to tax local consumption, why not take 
 the direct and inexpensive way of taxing the local dealers 
 in articles locally consumed, not by assessment of the said 
 articles, but by estimation of the profits on their sale ? As 
 for the argument about trade giving some consideration 
 for the conveniences the Municipality affords, who, after 
 all, are the main representatives of the trade thus benefit- 
 ed ? Why, the resident traders themselves ! So the District 
 Officer argued j and determined on the discomfiture of the 
 committee. He procured the abolition of octroi, and insisted 
 on the adoption of the dreaded house-tax. From the time it 
 was imposed, the Municipality gave him no peace. The 
 Secretary was busier than ever, being for ever inditing peti- 
 tions from this and that class of inhabitants against the tyranny 
 of the tax.- "The poor are leaving their homes," he wrote, 
 " unable to support this new burden. Some say it is the Honor- 
 ary Magistrate and the late Darogah, who, with the help of 
 the discharged mohurirs, are making an agitation ; but I, 
 for one, do not credit this. However, the receipts are almost 
 nothing. Where is now our proud Municipality ?" Ah, where 
 indeed ! And when the Tahsildar joined the malcontents by 
 sending up a terribly-reduced assessment list for the following 
 year (nadarad, or penniless, being inscribed opposite a third 
 of the householders' names), the Collector gave way. It was 
 necessary to save the Municipality from extinction ; so he in- 
 troduced a trade-tax. This was, indeed, vengeance on the 
 
MUNICIPAL SOEEOWS. 95 
 
 hania, who already paid provincial income-tax ; and not to let 
 the Honorary Magistrate ofE easily, the latter's nephew, whom 
 he had got put in as his mohurir, was taxed on his pay, as a 
 person "making profits by business." The &awm always cast 
 it in the nephew's teeth that the assessment was nominal, his 
 real profits being unknown. 
 
 Thus reformed in its finances, the Municipality is now able 
 to repair its drains and roads, and to have a modicutn over for 
 rubbish-bins and such like luxuries. But, meanwhile, what 
 of that fair freedom of whom it is writ — 
 
 " Then stept she down through town and field, 
 
 To mingle with the human race, 
 
 And part by part to men revealed 
 
 The fullness of her face ?" 
 Did the Municipality recognize her and throb with joy? I 
 much fear that they offended her with their petty squabbles, 
 so that she hid her face and left them, especially when she heard 
 the tread of the angry District Officer. But, at least, the 
 school-master has learned something of the troubles of Go- 
 vernment, and the District Officer has been shown how unfit 
 the school-master, with his querulous inutility, is for that exe- 
 cutive post he has been long seeking. Moreover, the com- 
 mittee has reached its true level of usefulness — being merely 
 the interpreter of the Collector's wishes to the townsfolk — 
 the channel of communication of the latter's grievances to 
 him. And the moral crowning all is — 
 
 " Deliver not the tasks of might * 
 To weakness." 
 
96 IN THE C. P. 
 
 DESINE QUERELIS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Cease to complain — a soft breeze blowing 
 
 Beneath grey skies and o'er moist leas, 
 Restores_life's bloom with the time of sowing, 
 
 And a tender green to the quickened trees ! 
 II. 
 The hot, dry gust of summer's passion 
 
 Is gone, as thirst from the drenchen ground; 
 Long suits of toil are the pleas in fashion, 
 
 And peasants' cares to their ploughs are bound ! 
 III. 
 When earth lay faint in her haggard beauty 
 
 The angels carried her Soma- wine, 
 And Indra's voice, like the voice of duty, 
 
 Said "Drink!" — She flushed to a bloom divine, 
 
 IV. 
 
 She whispers "Work!" — ^Wilt thou slight her bidding? 
 
 The clouds drop balm — shall they weep in vain ? 
 Nay, rend the toils thy pride was thridding, 
 
 And turn, vain man, to thy desk again ! 
 
 THE SUPERNiniERARY.* 
 
 It is curious with what exaggerated notions of his future 
 career the young competition- wallah sets foot in this country. 
 The Civil Service Commissioners are not to blame, for they 
 maintain an icy reserve when the selected ephehi appear be- 
 fore them. Cannon-street echoes to no lofty and didactic ora- 
 tory like that which draws applause at Cooper's Hill. I think 
 
 * Junior Civil Servants wlio are not as yet graded in the official complement 
 of a Non-Eegulation Province are called " Supernnmeraries." 
 
THE STJPEENUMEBART. 97 
 
 the cause is to be found in the common, and it may be weak, 
 human belief that there always exists a proportion between 
 preparations and results ; and that when laborious studies are 
 dem.anded of the candidate for some employment, this is evid- 
 ence that the employment is of a kind which only learning or 
 genius can duly fulfil. Youth is full of fantastic visions and 
 of rude enlightenments. The discovery that' the -^ork before 
 him demands no special talent or knowledge, but is already 
 handled successfully by men of ordinary education and com- 
 mon sense, is no doubt a healthy surprise for the young servant 
 of Government. Fresh from the university, from his Temple 
 studies, from lectures and examinations on political economy, 
 Indian polity, the philosophy of history and law, he arrives 
 on the bumt-up plains of India Uke a savant laden with scien- 
 tific implements, and eager to bring his apparatus to bear on 
 the facts around him. He soon discovers that the climate is 
 not deemed favourable to scientific research, and that his use- 
 fulness will depend on his business capacities, and not on his 
 equipment. He finds the all-round motto to be — " An ounce 
 of mother- wit is worth a pound of clergy," and sinks at once 
 into a Supernumerary Assistant Commissioner and the duties 
 of a Post Office Clerk. His youthful imagination is not, how- 
 ever, all at once daunted. It throws a glamour about the 
 person of his superior, the all-powerful administrator of the 
 district, whom even his intimates dare not plainly name. 
 When they have occasion to speak of him, they use the mystic 
 letters D. C, meaning, perhaps. Dread Cause, or Deus Clemens. 
 Sometimes the D. C. is a Major or Colonel in Her Majesty's 
 army — a duplicate capacity which fills the young Supernu- 
 merary with awe. He thinks of the old Italian sun-god, 
 Janus Geminus, who is represented with two faces, looking 
 front and back. 
 
 The D. C.'s wife treats him with the kindly condescension 
 appropriate to her position; and speaks familiarly of him to 
 
98 IN THE C. P. 
 
 her friends as " her husband's assistant." When the Supernu- 
 merary hears this phrase for the first time, he shudders, think- 
 ing of the grocer's counter and parcels done up with twine ; 
 but he soon grows callous. If he is of winning "manners, the 
 D. C.'s wife will make him her Aide-de-Camp and anoint him 
 with her smiles. Putting these trifles aside, the Supernume- 
 rary sets himself to work to study the habits and official 
 occupation of his superior with a view to getting an insight 
 into that " district experience" of which he has heard so 
 much. He has been told that persons high in office have 
 sacrificed for a time the comforts of their elevated station, and 
 sought a lowly residence in the Mofussil, for the sake of the 
 priceless lessons which real district work alone can give. 
 " Build me a cottage in the vale," they have said, and aban- 
 doned their proud palaces of art. Like most men who have 
 spent much time over books, he longs to discover the joys of 
 action, to feel his hands on the reins of human joy and woe, 
 to be a vindicator of order and sanitation in an administrative 
 area which, as the Home papers have repeatedly told him, is 
 often as large as Yorkshire. He hints as much to the D. C, 
 who is troubled in spirit thereat. It is so very griffijoish and 
 awkward to be zealous. Happily, a petition from some 
 magicians, to the -effect that they are assured by their divina- 
 tion that there is treasure of gold hidden in a certain field hard 
 by, turns up at the right moment, and the Supernumerary is 
 given command of a body of coolies with pick-axes, and told 
 to trench thB spot. He finds nothing ; and writes a long and 
 interesting report on his failure. Joy of joys, his first report ! 
 It may be that his first D. 0. is a minute, laborious man, 
 who is only too glad to find a willing coadjutor in his humbler 
 duties. He leads the youthful Hastings to the dak bungalow, 
 and makes him count over all the knives and forks and sheets 
 and table-cloths, and report whether the numbers correspond 
 with those in the official list of furnishing. Then he takes 
 
THE SUPEBNUMEEART. 99 
 
 him to the town latrines ; but there is no need to pursue fur- 
 ther his researches in this direction. Homely tasks of thia 
 kind somewhat damp the Supernumerary's early ardour. He 
 is fortunate, however, if his D. 0. happens to belong to the 
 hunting class. The hunting class has two sub- divisions — hun- 
 ters of beasts, and hunters of men. The beast-hunter is a 
 healthy, vigorous person, who takes his young charge out tiger- 
 shooting without delay, and soon " knocks all the nonsense out 
 of him." Under the beast-hunter's tuition he learns to regard 
 the district as a shooting preserve, in which a sprinkling of 
 churls are allowed to reside out of humanity, and on condition 
 of their giving early hhahar of game. They sometimes give 
 trouble by litigation ; but a rigorous repression of appeals crushes 
 out this fanatical tendency. The man-hunting D. 0. regards 
 the normal condition of his district as one of sedition and con- 
 spiracy. He clothes himself with shadows, and vexes his soul 
 with dark imaginings. A delightful feeling of heroic danger 
 creeps over the Supernumerary who is under his orders, and 
 who is constantly being button-holed and made to listen to a tale 
 of treachery laid bare. How the Munsarim has been plotting 
 with the Muhafiz Buftar, and how the Tahsildar* is implicated. 
 Between them, these two, it seems, have played " the very mis- 
 chief" with the Government records; and there remains no 
 course but to clap them both into jail. The Supernumerary is 
 sent to arrest the Tahsildar, as a first-step ; and does it with a 
 feeling that he is like the Gaul who was sent to decapitate 
 Marius in the interests of Sylla. Tune homo audes in ergastu- 
 lum conoludere Vithul Damodhar ? 
 
 One morning, the D. C. awfully approaches his subordinate 
 with a man's bleached thighbone in his hand. " What think 
 you, is this ?" he asks, flourishing it spectrally around. Be- 
 fore the astonished Super has time to reply, a whisper is hissed 
 
 • Native Deputy Collector. 
 
100 IN THE C. P. 
 
 in his ear, " Murder, I take it ! I found it in a corner of the 
 public garden!" Further detail is not vouchsafed ; and the 
 Assistant is left in dreadful uncertainty as to whether the 
 Civil Surgeon, who has charge of the garden, may not have 
 been cruelly done to death ; till the latter turns up from a vac- 
 cination tour, and explains that a part of the ground was 
 formerly used as a Mahomedan place of btirial. 
 
 These things seem strange to the inexperienced ; but it is 
 wonderful how time takes off the edge of contrast, and oblite- 
 rates our disappointments with the dull philosophy of content. 
 Even the violently eccentric D. C, who hurls oaths and ink- 
 stands about his cutcherry, and fires a pistol off at hia 
 Police Inspector, ceases in time to astonish the youthful Assis- 
 tant. Gradually there grows upon his spirit the perception 
 that the India x>f his imagination was a vain, unreal thing ; and 
 that the India of reality is a dull, commonplace neighbourhood, 
 bare even of small talk, and business-like as a negro-plantation. 
 Gradually the horizon of his thought narrows, and his inter- 
 ests become bounded in by such" provincial questions as the 
 prospects of promotion, and the rights of military civilians 
 who " fought for the empire in 1857." By-and-by, even these 
 subjects become, as it were, high politics to him ; and he is 
 content in ordinary converse to talk of the Commissioner's 
 last visit, and to anticipate with joy the sight of a new face in 
 the station. Perhaps he quarrels with the D. C.'s wife and 
 does not like the D. S. P. All human intercourse practically 
 ceases for him, for the Eurasian doctor is no companion. He 
 sits, like Enoch Arden on his island, longing for the coming of 
 a friend, be it.even a Chief Commissioner. 
 
 " The glows 
 
 And glories of the broad belt of the world ; 
 
 All these he sees ; but what he fain would see 
 
 He cannot see, the kindly human face : 
 
 Nor ever hear a kindly voice." 
 
JUNE. 101 
 
 To divert his thoughts from morbid introspection, he takes to 
 literature ; which is better than taking to liquor. Or he takes 
 fever; and, in the empiric hands of the Eurasian doctor, is 
 speedily reduced to that state wherein all ambitious frettings 
 are forgotten, and goes the journey for which no viatiaum is 
 now provided, and for which no travelling allowance bill is 
 ever passed. 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 Passed as a dream ! — and the rain-drops falling 
 Banish it, bury it far and low- 
 Long green grasses are merrily calling 
 " Where is the demon of Summer now ?". 
 
 II. 
 Tall, lithe shoots of the bamboo swinging 
 Signal their thanks for cool airs blown ; 
 Bells of the Yucca are breezily singing 
 " Autumn is with us, and Summer is, flown !" 
 
 III. 
 
 Would that the rain with its soft insistence 
 Our hearts' bitterness might pursue. 
 Temper the past to a shadowy distance, 
 Quicken our happier aims anew. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Hope can rival the bamboo's spiring, 
 Joy be blither than Tucca-bells — 
 Hear, O ! Autumn, our souls' desiring, 
 Chasten us, christen us, out of thy wells ! 
 
102 IN THE C. P. 
 
 THE D. C. * 
 
 Of the different kinds of D. Cs. something has already- 
 been said. The D. Cs duties and the position he occupies in 
 his district remain to be described. It is a great mistake to 
 conceive of him as a person possessed of much original authori- 
 ity. A nerve-ganglion gathers and transmits sensation, but 
 it cannot be said to be a source of them. The D. 0. is only a 
 ganglion in the nervous system of administration, -which has its 
 brain-centre at the departmental head-quarters. There is 
 hardly anything which he can do without reference to super- 
 ior authority, and the whole of his workings are controlled by 
 higher criticism. 
 
 He is Collector, Magistrate, and Civil Judge, but the Com- 
 missioner and the Judicial Commissioner keep their eyes upon 
 his collections, check his law, and regulate the average num- 
 ber of days which each trial shall last. He cannot even buy 
 a chair or a writing desk without permission. As Collector, 
 he simply drives the Tahsildars ; but as Magistrate and Civil 
 Daniel, he is a personal drudge of the most thorough- going des- 
 cription. Hour after hour of his official day is spent in record- 
 ing evidence, and his fingers are numb when he lays down his 
 pen. He only lays it down to listen to his Reader's sing-song. 
 What the Reader mostly reads to him is evidence, recorded 
 by Subordinate Magistrates and Judges, against whose decisions 
 appeals have been preferred ; but this is varied with the reci- 
 tation of police diaries, and of a hundred and one reports and 
 references by scrawling mohurrirs and darogahs. In this way 
 the most of his time is occupied either in writing or in hear- 
 ing writings read. From time to time he has to frame re- 
 ports upon his progress in these two lines of business. When 
 
 * Deputy CommisBioner. 
 
THE D. C. 103 
 
 he gets lus tents out of his store and goes on tour in his dis- 
 trict, he does not escape the reading and writing furies ; they 
 follow him, and worry him wherever he goes. Perhaps 
 if he gets up very early, he is able to leave them sleeping, and 
 to rush desperately to a school, a dispensary, a distillery, or a 
 culvert, which needs inspection ; but they are sure to be 
 on~him before he gets back to his chota hazari. They come 
 riding behind the sowar, who brings the morning's dak. By 
 reason of- this haunting tyranny he cannot stay long in any 
 one place. He can do little more than write despairing little 
 notices in the visitors' books of the various schools, dispen- 
 saries, and distilleries which he sees and passes on. 
 
 At the wind of his coming, the tracks along which his pro- 
 gress is mapped are hastily smoothed for him by Tahsildars* 
 and chief constables : the school committees make usual 
 efforts to collect the scholars and present them all with new 
 caps : the hospital haboo fills in the tickets over the patients' 
 bedsteads : and the malguzars work zealously in the cause of 
 village conservancy. When he has passed, things go back 
 mostly to their old courses again. 
 
 Every year the Commissioner issues a circular upon road- 
 m.aking, full of familiar references to our old friends — the 
 ghats, the boulders, the side-drains, and the depressions. Every 
 year the Sanitary Commissioner makes a memorandum on the 
 topic of the spillings of wells, the sweepings of villages, and 
 the deposit of foeces. Every year the Inspector- General of 
 Education bemoans the faulty attendance at this or that school. 
 The fury-haunted D. C. can only fulminate parwanas, write 
 remarks in visitors' books, terrify a malguzar or two, and pass 
 on. When he has passed things go back mostly, as has been 
 said, to their old courses again. 
 
 Here, in India, the magic of the master's eye is the one 
 thing needful for the thorough accomplishment of practical 
 * Native Deputy Colleotors. 
 
104 IN THE C. P. 
 
 ■work of all kinds. Without it, no good roads can be made, 
 no sanitation can be ensured, no educational baokslidings can 
 be checked. Then, why does the district do without it ? 
 
 Because, briefly, we have acted upon the saying that there 
 can be no more oppression where every man has a right of 
 petition and a right of appeal from the order passed on his 
 petition ; and have elaborated therewithal a ponderous system 
 of judicial and non- judicial hearings, rehearings, and appeals. 
 The country being poor, cannot afford many officers ; and the 
 few it can afEord are almost entirely occupied in carrying out 
 the system. The District Head is the most occupied of all. 
 It is not denied that a labouring population require other 
 things besides the right of petitioning and appealing ; it is not 
 denied that roads, sanitation, education are things almost more 
 important than justice, for without them justice might never 
 be reached. It is only deplored that the system takes up so 
 much time that the other things cannot get all the attention 
 they should. Is there no remedy for the evil ? It is not cer- 
 tain that the general introduction of type-writers might not 
 lessen pressure on the D. O.'s time. Other suggestions are 
 the extended use of summary procedure and the making Eng- 
 lish the language of record in all subordinate courts. But 
 these are small contributions. A palliative recently tried with 
 success has been to hand over the appeals to an Assistant. A 
 remedy still to be subjected to experience is to convert the 
 D. S. P. into something more than a police officer. Why 
 should not the D. S. P. look after roads, sanitation, and 
 school attendance, as well as after crime ? Consider the in- 
 fluence and the facilities for control in these matters possessed 
 by the D. S. P. He is always on the march, and need not be 
 in a hurry, except when > a murder or a dacoity is on hand. 
 His circles of inspection and circles of patrol cover the whole 
 district. His eyes and hands are in a manner every where, 
 and he is not distracted from giving attention to what they 
 
SEPTEMBER. 105 
 
 inform him of by the daily necessity of hearing suitors and of 
 recording their statements. If the D. C. cannot do the D. C.'s 
 work (of which road-making, sanitation, &o., surely is a part), 
 some one had better do it for him — and who better situated for 
 doing it than the D. S. P. ? Of course, the D. S. P.'s Depart- 
 mental Head would make a noise ; but then a head can always 
 be out off — as Tarquin pointed out long ago in his garden. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 I. 
 
 In the eyes of September the smiles of November 
 
 Mingle, as blue with grey — 
 As gladness from sorrow a deep light doth borrow, 
 
 So is earth's glance to-day ! 
 
 II. 
 The teak-tree, beholding the lily unfolding 
 
 Flags of a wondrous green, 
 Puts on a gay bonnet with yellow stars on it 
 
 And gossamer wefts between ! 
 
 III. 
 Down by the grey river while sad rushes quiver, 
 
 Here, where the wold runs high. 
 Made proud by morn's wiling, the millet-blades smiling, 
 
 Challenge the deep-hued sky. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Would lovely September might leave to November 
 
 This mantle she trails so low — 
 But ruthless October is sure to disrobe her, 
 
 And all the green grass will go ! 
 
106 IN THE C. P. 
 
 THE D. S. P.* 
 
 In tliat wonderful microcosm, wMch is called a district, there 
 are two governing powers wUch, with some of the subtlety 
 that characterized the metaphysical theology of Alexandria, we 
 must yet conceive of as forming but one power. If D. C. stands 
 for Deus Oausans, then D. S. P. may be taken to mean Bia- 
 holus Binapizans or Sinepudicitia. For, in some respects, the 
 D. S. P. resembles Ahriman, the prince of the powers of dark- 
 ness, and is therefore in antagonism with the principles of 
 light and leading, which it is the business of the D. G. to in- 
 dicate. For the most part, however, he is the D. C.'s co-adju- 
 tor and terrible shadow ; and therefore I prefer to read the 
 symbols as signifying Bei Simulacrum Proehet, — a rendering 
 which is surely void of olfence. 
 
 Persons who are perplexed about the possibility of govern- 
 ing Egypt by means of an international commission working 
 through departmental of&cers, should take heart of grace 
 when they see how well our little lands of Goshen get on. 
 Every district is controlled by a board, the members of which 
 are severally responsible for their work to a kind of All-the- 
 Sciences committee sitting at head-quarters and representing, 
 the continents of medicine, political economy, education, ar- 
 chitecture and police. Could anything be more simple ? 
 
 It was feared that Wilson might quarrel with DeBlig- 
 nieres ; but tact and the principles of light and leading avoid- 
 ed that; and when the D. S. P. shows a tendency to make a 
 departmental stand against the D. C, the same fortunate 
 qualities stave off a rupture. Ai the very worst, a change of 
 scene is possible ; and the D. S. P. passes from Egypt to Asia 
 Minor, Baotria, or the Perim district. He is an old campaign- 
 
 * District Superintendent of Police. 
 
THE D. S. P. 107 
 
 er, and does not mind travel. Ideally, he is to be conceived 
 of as standing for ever with one foot in the stirrup, ready td 
 go anywhere at a furious pace, and, listening to roznamelias 
 ■ till the arrival of the red letter,* throws his other leg across. 
 Practically, however, he is to be found in the public garden, 
 looking after the sowing of cabbages ; or listening to the same 
 roenamohas in the quiet of his office. Cabbages and roznam- 
 elias are both of them dull and hebetating things to deal with, 
 but they act as useful lenitives to the quick and Uhlan-like 
 spirit which passes so much of its time in scouring the dis- 
 ordered marches of crime. A daily course of police diaries 
 recited in sing-song by a nasal mohurrir would deprive an 
 ordinary man of his reason ; but the D. S. P. is said rather to 
 like the recitation, and to find in it a special kind of lullaby. 
 Not that he goes to sleep. On the contrary, he must be parti- 
 cularly wide-awake. In the hall of the AU-the- Sciences com- 
 mittee stands a gigantic statue of Diva Numeria, or " dear Old 
 Mother Statistics." Before this statue, yearly and quarterly 
 offerings in the shape of tabulated result-statements are re- 
 verentially laid by his departmental chief, to the sound of slow 
 paeans. She is held to be most propitiated by s. fair average, 
 anything abnormal being particularly distasteful to her. 
 Hence, it behoves the D. S. P. not to put his superior to shame 
 by showing sis robberies with violence where last year there 
 were only two ; or a lower proportion' of convictions to reported 
 offences than he was successful in gaining in the preceding 
 quarter. On the other hand, it will by no means do to 
 present too sudden a decrease of crime; for that would 
 rufle the calm of the divine Numeria, and perhaps compel 
 her ministers to gash themselves with that two-edged and 
 dangerous tool which is called a " generalization. " So 
 
 * Intimations of cases of murder and dacoity are sent to Head-quarters 
 in red envelopes. 
 
108 IN THE C. P. 
 
 the D. S. P. must be ever on the watcli to see that chief 
 constable Ram Sing is not merely padding his diary with 
 petty details of how Mtmna Lai was bitten by a snake and 
 treated with the cholera medicine kept in the station-house ; 
 or Mt. Chandbi fell down a well in the confusion of a domestic 
 battle, and was hauled out again. He must give a fair mea- 
 sure of really criminal incident in return for his wage. Per- 
 haps the reported crimes are above the average ; and it then be- 
 comes of anxious moment to set things right by discovering 
 whether the reports were true or not. If Ram Sing gives 
 careful reasons for believing that Bhojraj only reported that 
 his house had been broken into in order to stop the clamour 
 of creditors thirsting for his cash, the D. S. P. will endorse a 
 recommendatory note that the ungrammatical, but precious, 
 dictum, "not occurred," be pronounced by the D. 0. and duly 
 inscribed in the register. These and many other considera- 
 tions of interest keep the D. S. P. pretty wide awake, especi- 
 ally as he is ambitious to show a better result-statement 
 than his neighbour in the next district. Occasionally, too, he 
 has to jump up and visit the court of some refractory Magis- 
 trate, who refuses to believe that a certain seemingly-respec- 
 table traveller is really a hudmash from Lucknow or the Berars, 
 and ought to be incarcerated for six months ; or to argue with 
 the D. 0. upon some question of wickedness, "not occurred," 
 as aforesaid. All this leaves little time for the cabbages; 
 and if the D. 0. who refuses to write "not occurred," adds to 
 his unpleasant obstructiveness a tendency to laugh at the 
 " sugar loaves " and " drumheads," it must be admitted that 
 there is some bitterness in what may be called the stirrup-cup of 
 the Uhlan of administration. But now the red letter arrives 
 and the D. S. P.'s leg is across the saddle. He is a furious 
 rider, and the wicked Kotwals of the villages he passes 
 through (who are most of them in league with crime) shudder 
 when he gallops past, as the German peasant shudders when 
 
THE S. P. D. 109 
 
 the AQsion of the "English Hunt" (die engelsJce Jagd) makes 
 fearful the night wind. Indeed, an extract from a description 
 of the wild huntsman, as known in that country, seems appro- 
 priate to oiir Uhlan. "Mounted on his white or dappled-grey 
 steed, the wild huntsman may always be recognized by his 
 
 broad brimmed hat Who ever sees it approach 
 
 must fall flat on the ground, or shelter himself under an odd 
 number of boards, nine or eleven, otherwise he will be borne 
 away and set down hundreds of miles away from home . 
 . . It is still more dangerous to look out of the window 
 
 when Hakelberg is sweeping by The rash man 
 
 gets a box on the ear that makes his head swell as big as a 
 basket, and leaves a fiery mark on his cheek."* But the 
 members of the Wild Hunt (head-constables, circle inspectors, 
 and others, mounted on tattoos) rout out the Kotwal from un- 
 der the shanty where he cowers, and bid him bring forth the 
 malguzar, who was muttering in his back verandah — 
 " Though I am now as old as the Mahadeva wold,-)- " 
 Yet the like of this, I ween, in my life I ne'er have seen! " 
 
 and add his presence to the pursuit of the Boar of Crime. 
 
 It is this aspect of the D. S. P.'s functions which makes 
 him stand forth in the rural imagination as Dei Simulacrum, 
 or as the D. C.'s terrible shadow ; and it is in the exer- 
 cise of this part of his duties that he shows some of the 
 qualities of Ahriman. Familiarity with his visits, however, 
 leads the innocent to cease regarding him with alarm ; 
 and when he sits at evening, in the door of his tent, the 
 malguzars come as confidently and willingly as the angels did 
 to Abraham, and tell him all the news of the country. He 
 thus gets a large insight into the criminal proclivities and 
 resources of the country side ; and often gives the D. C. time- 
 
 * Kelly's Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore — p. 268. 
 t The Mahadeo hill-group ie a portion of the Satpura Range. 
 
110 IN THE C. P. 
 
 ly wariLing that this or that Honorary Magistrate or Municipal 
 Member is misusing his authority and dishonouring his oflB.ce. 
 He acquires, also, a considerable amount of influence in this 
 way, without the aid of those material agencies which ill-found- 
 ed scandal accuses him of working ; and can get roads put 
 right, and stones and timber carted much quicker than the 
 Tahsildar can. He is always needing stones and timber for 
 his outposts, which, like a vigilant soldier, he pushes further 
 forward upon the marches of crime, and keeps constantly in 
 defensive repair. His active habits make of him a cheerful, 
 business-like soul, and the ladies always appeal to his willing 
 aid when they want anything, from a darzi to a water-cress. 
 Being generally a military naan, he retains something of the 
 soldierly bearing ; and on seeing him in frogs and forage cap 
 at the January Durbar, you feel that the district is both 
 safer and grander for the presence of a son of Mars. Should 
 the D. C. in mufti walk up and take the D. S. P.'s arm, the 
 effect is electric ; and when the Civil Surgeon, the Executive 
 Engineer, and the Supernumerary group themselves in the 
 back-ground, the least emotional must join in the popular shout 
 of — Vivat Imperatrix ! 
 
 SICK. 
 
 Reach me the scrannel- pipe whereon I blow : 
 Although the notes may trembling sound and low 
 I, laying sick upon this couch of pain. 
 Will yet unsing what I have piped in vain ! 
 Ah, where is the summer's sun gone ? 
 
THE CIVIL SUEGEON. Ill 
 
 II. 
 
 I hymned of autumn fair : thus shining meads, 
 Paha-bordered rivers lush with grass and reeds 
 Are lovely to the eye, till cobras flash 
 Steel-hooded wrath and giants lizards clash ! 
 Ah, where is the summer's sun gone ? 
 
 III. 
 Naj, never more deceive my trusting love 
 Shade-haunting temptress ! Poisoned was the glove 
 Which covered the small hand my lips would kiss — 
 My lips are fevered now, but not with bliss ! 
 Ah, where is the summer's sun gone ? 
 
 THE CIVIL SUEGEON". 
 
 The most comfortable and contented figure upon the 
 Board of Guardians which manages the Humdrum District is 
 the Civil Surgeon. Why he is so comfortable and contented 
 it is difficult to say; unless the contemplation of the fact that 
 he has escaped from the army with its parades and hot uni- 
 form, and knows no real superior but the departmental head, 
 who lives far away, is a " joy for ever " to him. The prospects 
 of promotion, too, are so very remote, that he must 'needs 
 make the best of things ; and a kindly Government allowing 
 him to take root where he stands, without any of that anxiety 
 as to iicnv he is growing'jwhich leads it to dig up Supernumera- 
 ries, and hoc genus omne, he gracefully embowers himself in a 
 flowery retreat, and "calls the cattle home" every evening. 
 He is the patriarch of the station, and xeckons time as Horace 
 did the age of wine, by the succession of Chief Magistrates. 
 Such and such an improvement, he will tell you, was made 
 
112 IN THE C. P. 
 
 when Colonel Bang was D. 0. Poor Colonel Bang, who died 
 of liver at Bath three years ago. As a consequence of so 
 much experience, he is a perfect store-house of local gossip and 
 antiquarian lore. The stone which you mistook for a Scy- 
 thian monolith, he will tell you was set up by Major Snap in 
 memory of a favourite Gond shiharry, who was killed by a 
 tiger : and yonder ruins, which resemble a Jiypcethral temple, 
 are the remains of a stone serai built in the good old times 
 when there were no budgets, and district work-overseers got 
 drunk on champagne. Along with these " auld warld" stories, 
 he has much of current rumour to retail—gup about the 
 marches and countermarches of the departmental heads, news 
 of the latest move in the campaign between the Heaven-born 
 and the "fighting-men of 1857," and the correctest information 
 as to the teething-convulsions of the European constable's last 
 infant. For these valuable qualities, he is welcome at every 
 cJiota hazri table in the station, the welcome being quite inde- 
 pendent of his professional character. Somehow or other, 
 everyone, himself included, seems to tacitly settle that his 
 professional character is rather an incuhus than otherwise ; 
 and that, as far as possible, it should remain in abeyance. Of 
 course, if there is serious illness, the ladies will appeal to him 
 as the official representative of the department, whose busi- 
 ness it is to suppress disease : but Moore's Family Medicine 
 and the Hospital Assistant relieve him of a deal of profitless 
 practice. It is a curious fact, by the way, that in India both 
 the Established Church and the College of Physicians lose 
 much of their prestige : contact with Oriental habits tending, 
 apparently, to develop individualism both in religious and in 
 medical practice. One is constantly discovering that one's 
 neighbour is a lay preacher or an uncertificated practitioner- 
 of homoeopathy in disguise. For the rest. Cockle and Hol- 
 loway have no mean area 'of authority between them. The 
 Civil Surgeon takes this state of things very contentedly. 
 
THE CIVIL SUEGEON. 113 
 
 He knows that the human, and especially the feminine, mind 
 is mnch tinder the influence of externals ; and that were he to 
 wear broadcloth and speak as oilily as the Hospital Baboo, 
 his professional esteem would be greatly heightened. But 
 why should he make himself uncomfortable for the sake of 
 pride ? His situation has dignity enough without the addi- 
 tion of medical fame ; and the area of that possible fame is so 
 very narrow. So he wears jail-cloth and a huge pith topee — 
 and is easy, and jocular, and anything in the world but pro- 
 fessional. It must not be imagined that he is idle, because he 
 is inclined to be stout. As one of the Board of Guardians, he 
 has plenty to do. Because criminals often require jalap as 
 much as hard labour; the charge of the Jail is entrusted 
 to him. What that entails, few outsider's understand. It is 
 not merely a duty of casual inspection with the liability of 
 being called out to suppress an emeute superadded, — it involves 
 a practical acquaintance with oil-pressing, stone-breaking, 
 and the art of weaving. Tour Jail Superintendent must know 
 to a chitach what quantity of oil prisoner Ram Sing ought to 
 get out of the measure of linseed poured into his rude- wooden 
 mill, whose ponderous pestle goes round at the impulse of 
 three fellow-convicts ; and must determine judiciously what 
 amount of flogging will most effectually correct Ram Sing's 
 laziness without unduly swelling the record of stripes. This 
 same Rhadamanthine necessity goes with him into the stone- 
 breaking yard. He must make stone-breaking pay, and yet 
 not be too lavish with the cane. Perhaps Khuda Baksh, con- 
 vict of the 3rd class, has hidden a twist of 'baccy under his 
 bedstead, and requires the discipline of the triangle before he 
 will confess which warder it was that gave it him : or Mussa- 
 mut Moti in the female ward has been screaming all night, 
 and needs to have- her hair cut under medical superintendence 
 as a cautionary measure. Then, ttere are the piles, of daily 
 registers showing every detail that can be imagined (even to 
 
114 IN THE e. F. 
 
 the number of pinclies of salt in each prisoner's mess), which 
 have to be checked and initialled ; for the departmental head 
 is one of the high priests of the goddess Numeria, of whom 
 we have heard, and is zealous in her worship. The stranger 
 may feel saddened at seeing Hippocrates- Galen harnessed to> 
 such a humble go-cart as this ; but the Civil Surgeon is not 
 prou'd, as I said before. The Jail brings him in an extra 
 Rs. 50 a month ; and in these hard times the money is not to be 
 despised. Has he not children who are perpetually wearing 
 out their brass-tipped shoes on the gravel ? Trom the Jail- 
 gate — glorious with a police-guard which prods the sky with 
 its bayonets at the word " Present arms !" to him passing — his 
 jolting bullock tonga takes him to the hospital. This is a bare 
 whitewashed building with some oharpoys in one room, and 
 an almirah filled with medicine jars in another. The oily 
 Baboo meets him at the door, and shows the plasters he has put 
 on the legs and arms of the in-patient. Then the prescription 
 for the constable's baby has to be made up, which is painfully 
 effected by hoisting out the heavy jars from the cupboard and 
 bringing in the small jars in tinkling chorus. Let us hope 
 that there is no post mortem, case on hand, and that the Doctor 
 can drive straight away to his chota hazri at the D. S. P.'s. 
 
 If the D. S. P. does not like the work, or has quarrelled 
 with the D. 0. on some point of cabbage-culture,, the charge 
 of the public garden rests with the Civil Surgeon. This is a 
 good arrangement ; for being something of a botanist he can 
 glibly entertain a visitor with those Latin names for the rarer 
 plants which the D. S. P. sometimes fails to find in Firminger. 
 He is supposed, too, to have a chemical and practical acquaint- 
 ance with manures, owing to his experience in the Jail garden. 
 As the- badminton ground is in the garden, he is commonly 
 given charge, too, of the apparatus of that* game ; and every 
 evening he joins cheerfully in its airy amusement with the 
 D. C.'s wife for his partner, and the D. C. and the D, S. P, 
 
t5CT0BEE. 115 
 
 against him. If, in tlie excitement of tlie sport, he leaps back- 
 ward into the adjoining ■water-channel, he comes out again 
 smiling and jocular, and the mishap affords everyone amuse- 
 ment. In the cold season, he goes on vaccination-tour ; and 
 thousands of litijle children are brought unto him to have their 
 arms punctured and touched with lymph. He notes the filthy 
 state of the villages -, and annually writes admirable suggestions 
 as to sanitary improvements which cannot possibly be carried 
 out. In fact, all the Board of Guardians are at one with him, 
 that it would be a good thing if sweepings were carried outside 
 the villages, and the spillings of wells carefully drained away ; 
 but the difficulty is to organize the practice of these sanitary 
 plans without the sanction of legal penalties for omission. 
 
 Thus, like the " simple peasant, Isaac Ashton," " to pomp 
 and pageantry in nought allied," the Civil Surgeon is not 
 only the most contented and mildly industrious member of 
 the Board of Guardians, but a right good fellow into the bar- 
 gain. Really, if he will only abstain from giving you medi- 
 cine, you are not quite certain that his cheerful voice and 
 obstinate incredulity as to the fact of your illness, does not 
 do you as much good as you can ever expect to get from a 
 Doctor, 
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 This is St. Martin's Spring : no buds appear, 
 But a more gentle breeze begins to blow, 
 And, like a herald with a trumpet clear, 
 Calls up our garrison to hear the foe. 
 
116 IN THE C. P. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Come forth afield !" it says, " for peace is made 
 The black-browed tempest and the fiery sTin 
 Are f eebled quite : their sharp assaiilts are stayed 
 And men may range abroad with spear and gun." 
 
 III. 
 To prick the fat boar from his brambly lair, 
 To stalk the black buck through the standing corn, 
 To drop the duck, the snipe, the bustard rare, 
 To hunt the jackal to the winded horn ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 And, when the lust of limb is satisfied, 
 
 To lax the heart beneath a lordly tree, 
 
 To drink the free air of the champagne wide. 
 
 And dream what dreams of joy by day may be ! 
 
 THE PADRE,* 
 
 ^ Churches in this country look neither picturesque nor com- 
 fortable. There is a public works freshness about them 
 which mars their attempts at Gothic age ; and they are not in 
 harmony with their squalid surroundings. One feels that the 
 pine-apple dome of the Hindu temple is more suggestive of 
 worship than are the flying buttresses and the corrugated iron 
 of our House of Prayer. 
 
 In like manner, when one meets a Bishop in apron and 
 eaiters upon the glowing maidan, one feels a shock of incon- 
 gruity and sorrow. It is not the dress alone, it is the wreck of 
 associations. By the breaking up of his historic back-ground, 
 the prelate has become ridiculous. Wynds and closes should 
 be behind him, and behold the huts of Dherpoora ! 
 * Chaplain. 
 
THE PADEE.* 117 
 
 ^ One sometimes wonders whetlier it would not be more fitting 
 if he went abroad here in his preaching habit of white lawn. 
 There is something in common between the surplice and the 
 simple tunic of the country. 
 
 One's memory of the apostle-pictures on the illustrated 
 texts of one's youth is that Paul and Barnabas were clad in 
 white linen on this wise. Call it dhoti or toga, its folds fall 
 always the same. 
 
 But where are the poor unto whom the apostles preached ? 
 They are in the huts of Dherpoora. They are unbelievers, as 
 in the apostolic times; but they are not sought out in their 
 alleys by the modem apostles. It is too hot ; and the gift of 
 tongues is wanting. They are made over for visitation to the 
 native Catechist. 
 
 The church of the Humdrum District is a much buttressed 
 little building, with an iron roof and a stone extinguisher, which 
 was meant for a belfry. But the bell was too big for it ; and so 
 they hung it up under a wooden roof in the compound. Every 
 Sunday morning a native Christian jangles it painfully, and 
 the Board of Guardians come together for baking penance 
 within the oven-like edifice. The D. C. reads the prayers, and 
 the others murmur responses in the intervals of mopping. 
 
 The Padre Hves many miles away, in the head-quarters 
 station. Twice or thrice a year he pays Humdrum a visit. It 
 is a great occasion. The box containing the altar-plate has 
 to be got out of the Treasury, where the MamnoM disen- 
 tombs it from its resting-place between the opium chests and 
 the stamps almirah. It is lucky if the key has not been lost. 
 Then a notice is circulated of the hours of ministration; which 
 are generally threefold the ordinary, in order to make up for 
 lost opportunities. Some times a dark Jchansamah-like brother 
 in holy orders accompanies the Padre, and makes himself 
 useful in setting out the table, or if the little vestry door 
 has got jammed through disuse, he is sent through the 
 
118 ITS THE C. P. 
 
 window to open it. Tlie native CatecHst waits outside the 
 church after service, and takes the Padre to his quarters 
 in the serai, where he keeps his stock of mission-books and 
 several breeds of fowls. He makes a present of some 
 eggs to his spiritual superior, and complains volubly of the 
 depredations made by godless Madrassee servants upon his 
 hen-coops. He then passes to an account of his doings in the 
 bazaars. He mentions sadly that, being a Sikh, he cannot 
 make himself understood by the Mahrathi-speaking popu- 
 lace, although he thinks he has some success with the sallow 
 Mahom.edans who lounge around the madaJe shop. He is a 
 grey-bearded, intelligent old man, with shining teeth revealed 
 in a perpetual smile ; and being of a temperament little ruffled 
 by want of success in his work, he spends much of his 
 time in gently combing his thin locks in the sun. He does 
 not tell the Padre this; but communicates such details of "in- 
 teresting cases" as he is able to give, as his contribution to 
 the Annual Report on the mission, which must sooner or later 
 be written. For religion, too, is annually reported on, in this 
 country of reports and reporters. 
 
 It is but a couple of years ago that a particularly "interest- 
 ing case" called for the Padre's attention. A decrepit con- 
 vert finding himself an outcast in consequence of his conver- 
 sion, was in straits how to keep his solitary house in order. 
 At last he found an old woman as decrepit as himself and as 
 friendless, whom he duly converted and had her christened, — 
 "Jane." The pair lived contentedly together for some time, 
 till the Catechist told them they were " living in sin." It was 
 necessary that they should be married. The old man bought 
 a copper ring, and waited for the coming of the Padre. Then 
 Jacob and Jane were solemnly united in matrimony, the copper 
 ring slipping loosely on to Jane's withered finger. The cere- 
 mony seems to have overtasked the feeble pair ; for, a few months 
 after it was performed, it fell to the Catechist's lot to procure a 
 
THE PADEE. 119 
 
 cart from the D. C, and to carry their remains to the cemetery, 
 for Christian interment. 
 
 Beyond incidents of this kind, there is little to interest the 
 Padre in the bazaar; and he rettp-ns gladly to his European 
 flock. He is a social, happy-tempered man, and does not in- 
 trude his office upon the persons he visits. In this respect he 
 shines superior to those vagrant clericals who are not of the 
 Established Church, but who sometimes invade its sacred edi- 
 fices in clouted shoon and unclean linen. They breakfast 
 with you, and then pick a bone with your morality. Sooner 
 or later, you are obliged to show them the door. This want 
 of savoir vivre on their part is probably due to the fact that, 
 from an earnest desire to realize scriptural ideals, they spend 
 most of their time in the wilds, far away from civilized xesort. 
 The Padre's experience has taught him that among the civi- 
 lian portion, at least, of his congregations, latitude of view on 
 religious matters is a thing not to be combated with any ad- 
 vantage in private, although it may be gently denounced from 
 the pulpit on holy days. His energy takes refuge in scientific 
 researches, which sometimes lend him a missile for his Sunday 
 attacks on materialism. In recognition of the superior faith 
 shown by the military, — a faith which has possibly something to 
 do with a soldier's liking for discipline and for a clearly-map- 
 ped procedure towards a fixed objective, he sometimes allows 
 a Colonel or a Major to take his place at the readiag desk or in 
 the pulpit. The clanking sword, the martial bearing, and the 
 precise utterance of the harnessed reader, give eolat to this 
 alliance of the church with the army, and cannot fail (he 
 thinks) to impress the unbelieving man in mufti who listens 
 in gloomy silence to this Cromwellian act. 
 
 The time when we least like the Padre is when the Eura- 
 sians, who swarm about his dooy, quote his name as a beggar's 
 recommendation of their petition : and the time when we most 
 like the Padre is when he is playing lawn-tennis, or after a 
 
120 IN THE C. P. 
 
 cheerful dinner. The last bloom of the broadcloth then dis- 
 appears, and we are face to face with our human brother of 
 like joy and of like passions as we are, hearty, gay, forgetful 
 of that sad scheme of eternity which stifEens the lips of so 
 many Christian men, and which (to borrow an idea from 
 Carlyle) often converts both preacher and disciple into mere 
 devotees of "umbilical introspection." . 
 
 THE TIN, 
 
 Pass thy hand across the strings, 
 
 Love, and wake 
 
 Tender memories of sweet 
 
 English springs. 
 
 When such showers refreshed the earth 
 
 As now break, 
 
 And no thought of summer heat 
 
 Marred our mirth ! 
 
 We, like children, were at play — 
 
 Burning skies 
 
 Had not chased with feverous stress 
 
 Youth away ! 
 
 Now thy cheek is pale and lean. 
 
 But thine eyes 
 
 Flash an eloquence which says 
 
 " Life is keen ! " 
 
THE TIN. 121 
 
 III. 
 
 Let tliy voice in sweet accord 
 
 Sing witli mine — 
 
 " We will cross tlie sea and tread 
 
 English sward " — 
 
 Stroll, as loYera, liand in hand, 
 
 Wife, and dine 
 
 Where the trees of Richmond spread 
 
 Odours bland ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 All the happy days we knew 
 
 When we wed. 
 
 Shall be born again and win 
 
 Fond review ! 
 
 Pause a moment !-:— here a doubt 
 
 Lifts its head^ ■ 
 
 Do you think, my dear, the " tin" 
 
 Will hold out ? 
 
Part III. 
 
 SOCIAL. 
 
On plains parched to sereness, in dust and in drearness, 
 Begirt by the frown of the iron-browed hillB, 
 
 Aye moiling and swinlring, must I still be thinking 
 Of judgments and audits, of issues and bills ? 
 
 By rooks that beleaguer, where moulders the regur,* 
 A bird drops a seed, and a fair tree is sown — 
 
 So, o'er the lapsed gladness in life's orbing sadness 
 A fancy flits lightly and laughter is thrown ! 
 
 The bare hills at even are tinged from heaven 
 With purple and softness— can trifles vex then ? 
 
 Nay, life is new-whetted, day's fume is out-fretted, 
 And night brings a balm for the sorrows of men ! 
 
 * Black cottou-soil. 
 
PART III. 
 SOCIAL. 
 
 BESIEGED. 
 
 OuB enemy, the svm, after a brief suspension of hostilities, 
 during which we ranged the open-like children out of school, 
 has again drawn his lines about us, and compelled us to retire 
 withia our gates. Close is the siege, and weary the trial. 
 Tear after year we have endured it, but familiarity with hard- 
 ship has not bred contem.pt. We know that we shall be 
 weaker and wearier when the annual inyestment is over ; and 
 alas ! for the roses in the cheeks of the fair. But we bear the 
 inevitable with resignation ; and the ladies, as happens again 
 and again in those sieges which belong to actual war, display 
 a fortitude which was scarcely to be looked for. To one who 
 takes in imagination a bird's-eye view of the country at this 
 season, the scene is a strange one. All over the plains of India 
 are dotted garrisons of British men and women, stoutly holding 
 out behind their barricaded doors and windows against the 
 fiery onslaught of the day. Only at even and at early morn 
 dare they venture abroad for a brief reconnaissance. Only 
 here and there a thick-skulled fighter in a morion of pith, 
 follows the tiger or his woodland calling, in defiance of the 
 fiery glow. At rare intervals stand out hill refuges — cool re- 
 treats on which the chosen few gather about their local pat- 
 riarch, and escape the flood of fire. Of the dotted garrisons, 
 some are larger, some very small indeed — perhaps of six in- 
 dividuals at most. Here the hardship takes a more pitiable 
 form. Social sympathy made even the Temple prison gay ; 
 
124 IN THE C. P. 
 
 but how tired six people can get of each other's companj, even 
 in the most favourable field of circumstance ! Put these six 
 persons into confinement, as nearly as possible on the " separate 
 cell" principle ; exhaust them by hot airs, and starve them of in- 
 cident ; give them tough mutton, and fowls, and beer, and soda- 
 water cooled by swinging, for food and drink, and see if they 
 will make merry reunions at even-tide ! Probably they will 
 quarrel, naerely for the sake of the excitement which a " tiff " 
 affords. We have heard lately a good deal about the virtues and 
 the failings of the Anglo-Indian mem-sahib. In seeking for 
 more sentimental incident, the writers have seemingly overlook- 
 ed this item to her credit in the books of praise — ^the meek en- 
 durance by Tnem-sahib of the miseries of a little garrison on the 
 glow-environed plains. Complacent husbands, proud of the 
 flower they have culled on the breezy downs of home, think it 
 small sorrow that the flower should parch and fade, till it be- 
 comes as unlike its former self as the specimen in a Tiortus 
 siccus is like the living herb. To-day is the blooming bride, 
 fresh from the congratulations of thronging friends and the 
 bustle of English life : to-morrow, like the grass of the field 
 which is spoken of in Scripture, she is " cast into the oven." 
 This is a hard trial for any human being ; harder still in the 
 absence of those social divertissements which, at least, keep the 
 eye bright and the tongue in lively use. It may .be said that 
 conjugal society should be all in all, but the most affectionate 
 natures must tire of the constant presentation of each other's 
 sweetness, like a daily dish of prunes. What then ? Should 
 there be no ladies in garrison ? Should celibacy be enforced ? 
 Ask the ladies themselves, and they will cry out, " 'No ! " There's 
 the beauty of it ! They bear it all, and are cheerful ; and this 
 cheerfulness, under trial, gives them a new charm, which is 
 more than the loveliness of visual bloom. A little watering of 
 sympathy now and again, is all that they demand ; and mostly 
 they get it. But there is no doubt, I,think, of this thing ; that 
 
BESIEGED. 125 
 
 the fact that many delicate lives of English women and child- 
 ren are each year sadly put to strain, is due to onr present garri- 
 son system, and to mistaken conceptions of what that system 
 would prove to be. We hold on to the soil of India with Bri- 
 tish tentacles at every fifty or one hundred miles. Many and 
 many of these stations are of such desolate surroundings, that 
 it is simply a punishment, as bad as penal servitude, to post 
 any civilized men or women to them. These are the places 
 where the native products of our elaborate educational system 
 should take root as administrators, subject to the occasional 
 visits of controlling powers. A step has been made in this 
 direction by substituting here and there Native Assistant Sur- 
 geons for European doctors; but this way of beginning is 
 rather cruel to the Europeans who remain. By degrees we 
 shall have more Nativa Assistant Magistrates and Collectors 
 appointed, until, at last, the English Collector or Deputy Com- 
 missioner will stand out in Juan Fernandez-like solitude — ' 
 proud, lone, and beneficent, after the manner of James Brooke 
 in Sarawak. Then he, too, will be withdrawn ; and the eagle 
 eye of the Commissioner will watch from some well-chosen 
 eyrie, where the forces of control are gathered-in, the equable 
 course of things. Then, and not till then, will the residence 
 of the English in India, much diminished in numbers, cease 
 to be a sad and unnatural phenomenon, full of distorting 
 effects upon body and soul. It would be a miserable task to 
 estimate, if that were possible, the amount of disgust, sorrow, 
 querulousness, yearnings to be out of it, anathemas, anxieties, 
 sickenings, and heart-rending farewells which each hot season 
 generates in the plains. The country is our bread to many 
 of us ; but a few crumbs, eaten in healthy contentment in 
 England, were better than a batch of loaves of this kind. 
 India is a country suited to the wealthy few, and not to the 
 many of moderate means. These latter present a sad spectacle 
 to the intelligent Russ — the so-called conquerors of Ind 
 
126 IN THE C. P. 
 
 harassed for funds to send their children home, grnmhling over 
 their prospects in a country in which they have a great deal of 
 power but very little pay, and fashed with internecine feuds 
 between latter-day civilians and men who "fought for the Em- 
 pire in 1857 !" Truly, it is a sight to " make the angels weep." 
 Meanwhile, since it is our bread, it ill-behoves us to seek a 
 shortening of the already scanty allowance, by urging the con- 
 traction of European employment in our own day. It is 
 against the coming of more and more " latter-day " civilians, 
 with wives and families, create and increate, to eat of the 
 Dead Sea fruit of which we have tasted, that our voices are 
 raised. For ourselves, we are as martyrs who prepare a 
 monument of our bones to the spirit of duty, which alone sus- 
 tained us during the weary months and years when we were 
 " besieged." 
 
 UBIQUE AMOR. 
 
 I. 
 
 Wheee is Love's haunt ? Among the elms and birches, 
 
 On dewy meadow lands or upland leas ? 
 Where tender sunlight through the lilac searches, 
 
 Or where a bleak wind strikes the lichened trees ? 
 Finds he not fair the Peepuls and the Bur trees, 
 
 The whisper-loving Siris and the Palm ? 
 By twinkling Poplars, or by moaning Fir trees 
 
 Bides he, in fear of India's fevered calm ? 
 Ah, no ! — ^for, late, upon a palm-crowned island, 
 
 Where tangled creepers chained the languid air, 
 Through the sere shade there stole a woman's smile, and, 
 
 E'en in that instant, Love himself stood there ! 
 
SUBJECTITITT. 127 
 
 11. 
 
 Wkence had he sprung ? From out the temple-ruin. 
 
 Which arched a sacred darkness on the height ? 
 Fallen from the sHes, was he those doves pursuing 
 
 That circled coyly in the golden light ? 
 Risen from the sea, which still kept laughing lowly, 
 
 And called on aU the Palms to cover him, 
 Sought he to comb and dry his tresses holy 
 
 On a lone island, for on idle whim ? 
 No, not in this way had his lordship landed — 
 
 (I asked him, rounding in his rosy ear) 
 " From your own bark," he laughed, " just as you handed 
 
 Leila to shore, I leaped out and — am here !" 
 
 SUBJECTIVITY. 
 
 Our society is divided into two parties ; and I have lately 
 joiaed the ranks of the Subjectives. The famous hill of Lucre- 
 tius is nothing to our position ; we are like the gods beside 
 their nectar, and carelessly look on writhing masses of the 
 Objectives engaged in their daily conflict with physics. We 
 enjoy, as it were, the pleasures of opium, without endanger- 
 ing our health with the drug. We take delight in the doc- 
 trines of Buddha, without wishing for Nirvana. We maintain 
 a sitting or recumbent posture, but without any leaning to 
 ascetic practice. The limbs are relaxed, that the mind may be 
 more at ease. We strip ourselves of all passionate veilings, 
 and lie nakedly open to any impartial impression that may 
 come our way. . Envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness are as 
 far from our bosom as are love and predilection. The result 
 is, that all nature appears to us as a series of arrangements of 
 line and colour, quite Whistlerian in variety and marvels. As 
 
128 IN THE C. P. 
 
 for humanity and the pranks of men and wom.en, it is difficult to 
 illustrate their effect on us. It is both irritating and astonish- 
 ing. It is as though the dreamy musings of a hermit in a 
 forest glade were subject to noisy interruption from the in-rush 
 of a band of itinerant merry-makers. Even the hermit afore- 
 said, however, would derive a certain suggestion of pleasure 
 from the contrast between his own state of repose and the 
 exhausting activity of the athletes. In the same way, we are 
 pleasantly tickled by the feats of the Objectives. The chief of 
 these are known by the names of Tripudiation (or Trois-temps) 
 and Sphairistike (tennis or badminton) . In the practice of 
 them they are indefatigable. Bands of music and tables of 
 refreshments support their flagging energies. Occasionally 
 they sit down for a few minutes' rest, their faces streaming 
 with perspiration, fans agitating violently, and not afew look- 
 ing unhappily pale from their severe exertions. Their breath 
 restored, they are at it again. It is like the scene in the 
 Vision of Sin — 
 
 " Then they started from their places, 
 
 Moved with violence, changed in hue. 
 
 Caught each other with wild grimaces, 
 
 Half invisible to the view ; 
 
 Wheeling with precipitate paces 
 
 To the melody they flew ! " 
 Only it must be noted that "wild grimaces" is not a univer- 
 sally or exactly applicable term. With a few exceptions, the 
 faces of the performers express a firm severity which sug- 
 gests the Christian martyr, or other types of high-souled en- 
 durance to the end. 
 
 The feeling of amusement which is at first generated by 
 the spectacle of our familiar friends thus engrossingly en- 
 gaged, soon melts, however, into melancholy. As the old 
 waltzes are played over and over again, and seem to draw, as 
 by a magic spell, the minor vortices of whirling humanity into 
 
SUBJECTIVITY. 129 
 
 their echoing maelstrom, one begins to fear that there is some- 
 thing banal in the diversion. 
 
 May not the cerehella of the dancers become disastrously 
 magnetised by revolution across the plane of the earth's axis ? 
 Were this to happen, would not the dancers' become the musi- 
 cians' slaves ? In accordance with the tenets of my party, 
 however, I refrain from dwelling on painful possibilities, and 
 turn a languid eye to the. badminton ground. 
 
 Ubi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant. 
 
 Where, with piercing cries, that is to say, they whirl about 
 the mystic weapons of their athletic cult, and, like the priest 
 of Oybele, leap madly, breathlessly, furiously in conflict with 
 an airy phantom that flies hither and thither, eluding their 
 touch, while loudly sound the drum, trumpet, and fife — 
 
 Tympanum, tubse, Cybelle, tua mater initia ! 
 
 By-and-by, they are obliged to refresh themselves with 
 tea and coSee. It is not to be supposed that we are allowed 
 to occupy our chosen position of passive specta;tors of these 
 frantic displays vsdthout remonstrance or opposition. The 
 Objectives are a proselytising party, and cannot ujiderstand 
 how a person can ait once be happy, and refrain from joining 
 in their feats. They taunt us with want of skill, indolence, 
 pride, and a variety of other defects and evil qualities. But 
 we have the advantage of being cool, which is a great pull in 
 a tropical climate ; and while mentally consigniag them to 
 Philistia, can ensure the social peace with a suave reply. 
 
 On promenade nights our amity is considerably increased, 
 as the principles of our party do not condemn the gentle exer- 
 cise of walking, provided it be not too prolonged. Tet even 
 in this the muscular fibre of the Objectives asserts itself, 
 and produces a kind of antagonism to our nervous quietude. 
 Four or five robust walkers begin stepping out as if for a 
 wager, to the considerable discomfort of the more leisurely 
 
130 IN THE C. P. 
 
 patrollers. They marcli their quick step round and round 
 the promenade, carrying everything before them. Our 
 minds, unable to discover the object of these precipitate pro- 
 gresses and circumvolutions, experience blind presages of im- 
 pending collision with unknown forces, of need for hurry, of 
 marches to far places where 
 
 " Ignorant armies clash by night ; " 
 and a hundred other vain imaginings. It becomes impossible 
 for us to limp round the Band any longer, and we sink into 
 the nearest seat that is not sat all over with Philistines, to re- 
 pair, as best we may, our shattered nerves. 
 
 I would go on to speak of horse- exercise ; but having re- 
 cently suffered very severely through being forcibly enlisted 
 in a squadron of Objectives under a Philistine chief, who 
 sang to me as he hurried my horse along by the bridle — 
 " Rattle his bones over the stones 
 Only a waler the worse for the nones ! " 
 
 I find myself unequal to the task at present. Is not 
 "nones" a Chaucerian word ? How did he get hold of it ? 
 I seem to have splint and spavin on the brain. 
 
 YUCCA-BELLS. 
 I. 
 Hee love was Uke the fair spire-flower 
 Of the dark Tueoa. High it sprang, 
 With silvery chimes its belf rey rang — 
 But one rude blast laid low the tower ! 
 
 II. 
 And, where it stood, to hide from men 
 The source where such a wonder rose, 
 Stout blades are set m jealous rows 
 And keep the core from strangers' ken. 
 
FOUE CONVERSATIONS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 131 
 
 III. 
 
 But not from Him. While that spire stood, 
 He heard what chimes were leeward blown ; 
 The tale they told was still his own, 
 Their harmonies resolved his m,ood. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Both were as one. Now sUence reigns — 
 
 The fairy bloom of love is o'er — 
 
 But love is his for evermore. 
 
 And her soul's grace with him remains ! 
 
 FOUR COISTERSATIONS WITH A DISTRICT 
 OFFICER. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 When I called on the Collector, I found him in a little cham- 
 ber at the rear of his reception-room, busily engaged in 
 carpentering up a cart-wheel. By his side were two native 
 mistaris.* Seeing me enter, he smiled and said — " Tou may 
 be surprised at finding me engaged in this sort of work, but 
 you must learn to know how things he. I am on the right 
 track." " The right track to what ?" I asked, with as much 
 deference in my tone as I could throw into it. " To civilizing 
 the people," he replied. " The arts of peace produce comfort, 
 and comfort leisure, and leisure thought, which is but another 
 word for education ! Tou got a prize for political economy 
 before you left England — did you not ?" "I lost it by two 
 marks," I answered. He sent away the mistaris with the cart- 
 wheel, and drew me into the other room. Reclined in a chair, 
 which gave prominence to his boots, and suffered the main 
 
 * Master-artificers. 
 
132 IN THE C. P. 
 
 portion of his body to collapse into insignificance, tlie Collector 
 looked at me very knowingly over the long wooden arm of it. 
 "What do you think of our courts of justice," he asked; "I 
 mean the wood- work, and not the legal procedure?" "It 
 wants solidity," I replied, "and it seems to me that there 
 might be a little more finish in the furniture and fittings. 
 However, I suppose that Government has not got the money 
 to spend on such m.atters, and that we m.ust be content with 
 native carpentry in its raw state." " Nothing of the kind," 
 was the quick rejoinder. " Government has plenty of money 
 to spend. Look, for instance, at that fine school-house in the 
 New Bazaar, and at the iospital, two stories high, beyond it, 
 and at the many-arched serai* by the railway station. I tell 
 you, this plainness of judicial buildings is a very fair compli- 
 ment to the ofiders who work in them. It shows a faith in 
 impalpable results as opposed to the rude passion for being able 
 to set hands upon work done. Government mutely says to 
 judicial officers — 'We need not surround your doings with an 
 efflorescence of red brick, stone corbels, and mansard roofs. 
 We only do that sort of thing when we are afraid that the 
 native schoolmasters and the apothecaries are not getting on.' " 
 " Decking the hive to attract the bees," I suggested. "Bees 
 bring honey," he said, "and sick men and scholars don't. The 
 simile would be more applicable to a beautiful court-house. 
 Consider, now, as a first step towards understanding the pre- 
 sent economical administration of the country, the following 
 remarkable theorem to which Government has pinned its 
 faith : — ' The colourless and diluent product which men call 
 progress, naturally precipitates itself in the form of bricks and 
 mortar.' When you have got to be a full'power Magistrate, 
 you will never rise further until you have built a town-hall or 
 two. These edifices are staring testimonies of your power of 
 
 * Caravanserai, or native rest-house. 
 
FOUE C0NTEE3ATI0NS WITH A DISTEICT OFFICER. 133 
 
 getting in 'voluntary sulbsoriptions,' and of so pushing civili- 
 zation ahead. When the Chief Commissioner goes on toiir, it 
 is very difficult for him to detect any growth of intelligence 
 in the ugly faces of villagers who have been learning how to 
 make round cart-wheels ; but a square building hits his sight 
 at once. Toucan stroke a work of brick or stone, you know, 
 and say — ' Well, here's something, at all events, as an out- 
 come of all our labours and taxing : this speaks itself to earth 
 and sky as an assured result : there is no fear that any maul- 
 ing of statistics will make us disbelieve that this is here ! ' 
 It is true that a succeeding officer of the Executive may knock 
 the building down as unnecessary, or as inappropriate to the 
 spot, but this is one of the accidents of administration." 
 
 The loquacious Collector paused here, and called for brandy 
 and soda. While he was lighting a cigar, I was miserably 
 turning over in my head a thousand thoughts. " Come," I 
 said, "these instances of our care for their welfare must needs 
 have an effect upon the people. Acquaintance with comfor- 
 table hospitals, comfortable serais, and noble town-halls, must 
 perforce tend to raise their conceptions of life to a higher 
 standard?" "Comfort!" ejaculated my superior officer be- 
 tween the puffs of his long Trich. "Do you think that a peasant 
 is not more comfortable in a small mud cottage than in the long 
 and lofty corridor of a pucica mansion ? As for disinterested- 
 ness, the natives are sharp enough to see that it is to please 
 ourselves, and not them, that we build these edifices of Eu- 
 ropean model. We English people have our own notions of 
 comfort, and would be quite unhappy if we had not plenty of 
 solid blocks of masonry studded over the place, with a cheer- 
 ful, staunch look about them, and a suggestion of Clapham In 
 their gable ends." There was a brief pause. I (enthusiastic 
 dolt that I was !) could not help feeling dispirited by what I 
 had heard. A bright thought at length struck me. " Are 
 we not right in making ourselves comfortable?" I asked. If 
 
134 IN THE C. P. 
 
 you had seen the Collector then, you would have thought 
 that he had gone mad. He suddenly leapt from, his seat, and 
 smote me sharply on the shoulder with the action of a man 
 who has joyfully found the thing he sought. "Tou have hit 
 the vein," he said; "let us make haste and get out the ore! 
 The position which we hold in this country is not that of 
 missionaries, but of conquerors, with a humane disposition to- 
 wards the vanquished. In the first place we (very sensibly) 
 begin by making ourselves comfortable : in the second place, 
 we turn our thoughts towards spreading the comforts of civili- 
 zation among the natives. Missionaries may be content with 
 rude jhopras,* or with waxed-cloth umbrellas ; but the humane 
 conqueror will scarcely be satisfied with buildings that are not 
 puclea, and with habitations that give no delight. The mis- 
 sonary who leaves but the ashes of a camp-fire behind him is in 
 no danger of mistaking the relics of his personality for signs 
 of progress in the tribes he has taught ; but the civilizing 
 conqueror who pleases his fancy with building is not unapt to 
 mistake model school-houses for flourishing education, and 
 tasteful town-halls for a municipal spirit that thrives." Stop- 
 ping to take breath, the Collector suddenly burst out laughing, 
 and, looking me straight in the face, said — " Do you know 
 what is at the bottom of all this tirade ?" "I cannot conceive." 
 "Why, only last week I was about to purchase a clock for use 
 in my hall of justice ; but I was informed that a clock was not 
 an ' ordinary necessary ' in a Collector's Office, and that I must 
 obtain sanction. On the other hand, I was permitted to spend 
 EiS. 500 on a town cross, in the market place, without obtaining 
 any sanction. The paradox would puzzle me (for I do not quite 
 see that a market cross is an 'ordinary necessary '), but for 
 my perception of the fact to which I have already referred. An 
 unbelieving generation seeketh after a sign " (the Collector rose 
 and held out his hand to me). " Progress, in the judicial de- 
 
 * Huts. 
 
A GOLDEN LATTICE. 135 
 
 partments of the service, is manifested by codes and the repu- 
 tation of its oflBcers. There is no need, therefore, to surround 
 the Missionary-Maid Justice with any show of circumstance. 
 A band-box does well enough to keep her Bible and balances 
 in. Progress of education, sanitary knowledge, and a spirit of 
 self-culture among the mass of the people is not yet quite 
 manifest. Therefore, in order to keep the spirit of the age 
 from scolding at us, we are obliged to make a display of empty 
 but gaily-decorated godowns, in token of the stores that are 
 gathering, and are to come. For my part, I do not see why 
 some proYision should not be made for music among the other 
 etceteras. With this idea I have lately got up plans from the 
 office of an architect in Calcutta for the building of a Popular 
 Concert Hall for native performers. If I had not an engage- 
 ment to-night I would ask you to stay to dinner, and look 
 over these plans ; as it happens, I must put you ofE till next 
 week. Good-bye : on Tuesday evening we may have some 
 more talk about cart-wheels." 
 
 A GOLDEN LATTICE. 
 
 I. 
 
 I LIE in the grass at her feet 
 
 And the artful air, 
 
 Tossiag her golden hair, 
 Makes the blown tresses to meet 
 
 In a lattice fair ! 
 
 n. 
 I peep through this lattice, and see 
 
 Such a gleam arise 
 
 That I marvel and make surmise- 
 It is a new Dawn I see. 
 
 Or her arch blue eyes ? 
 
138 IN THE C. P. 
 
 to have missed the shoulders, for the palace goes to ruin, and 
 there is a long bill to pay. 
 
 "Do you see any writing on the peeled wall there?" I 
 was taken aback, and said — " No, unless the lizards be scrib- 
 bling something." "Look a little closer, and you will see 
 traced, as it were by a divine hand, these words : ' The princi- 
 ple of natural development neglected ! ' The serai had not that 
 which all useful buildings possess — a history of gradual growth, 
 from lower form to higher. It did not begin with the clus- 
 tering here of travellers under plain boughs, and the hoisting 
 of ragged cloths upon crossed poles for shelter. It did not 
 pass through the stage of coarse thatch and wooden uprights. 
 It was born of the brain of a district officer, and became a 
 pucka building before any one thought of praying for it. 
 Whereby, the stony stare of it is such that none will enter in. 
 And now," said the Magistrate and Collector (he was 
 both), "if you have paid a tithe of the attention which the 
 gravity of the subject requires" — " I know, I know what you 
 mean " (the cry came eagerly and hastily from me) ; " the in- 
 ference from all this is, that though progress has its symbols, 
 yet symbols do not constitute progress ; that those forms and 
 structures which are not the natural outcome of the needs of 
 a people are but obstacles to their real advance, that Munici- 
 pal Committees, for instance — " 
 
 " Stop !" broke in the Collector, laughingly ; " if you go on 
 at this rate I shall have nothing to talk to you about when 
 you come to dine with me to-morrow night. This is Erciea' 
 vein, indeed ; you are the aptest pupil — " 
 
 " That Municipal Committees have no independent history 
 in this country, but being suddenly constituted by the fiat of 
 Government, the native citizens, who are members, show like 
 puppets in a play which does not interest. Whereby that side- 
 aim of their author, that a healthy public spirit should be 
 nurtured in them, is baulked with an opposite effect. The 
 
CONTEESATIONS WITH A DISTEICT OPFICEE. 139 
 
 habit of saying ' Bahut achlia ' to every suggestion of an Eng- 
 lish Yice-President (horn of the consciousness of pnppethood) 
 is depraving ; and the silent ignoring with which their crude 
 ideas are greeted is not stimulant to their mental growth. 
 Liberty to express his opinion without correction or comment 
 is by no means a sure way of engendering enlightenment in 
 a speaker." 
 
 "Tou speak like a book," said the Collector, "and I will 
 venture in the spirit of your last sentence to enlighten the text 
 with a commentary. The object of the Government , in res- 
 pect of these Committees was somewhat different from what 
 you suppose. They wished in their administration of town- 
 ship affairs to retain some rapport with the feelings of the 
 citizens. It is better not to shock prejudices when the doing 
 of such a thing can be avoided, and the warning voices of 
 representative m.en may often prove a safeguard." 
 
 " But what if the voices speak idly — for ever crying ' All is 
 well,' when all is not well ; is not the danger greater than 
 before ? What, if your representative man be a cringing 
 hcmia, with no idea beyond that of keeping his money-bags 
 intact, and his conduct from displeasing the Sirhar, though 
 his neighbours starve for it." 
 
 " There is nothing profitable for doctrine to be got out of 
 him" said the Collector, turning his' horse to make an ins- 
 pection of the tiles and malgas.* I could hear him murmur- 
 ing — " Teak- wood costs two rupees the cubic foot, could make 
 excellent railings for my court-house out of these — only I 
 daren't." When he got back to where I stood, he said — " It 
 is an undeniable truth, ' young man, that, in order to find 
 independent advisers among the people of to-day, one 
 must have been careful to foster independence of thought 
 in the masses in former days. The principle of natural 
 
 * Eoofing-poles. 
 
140 IN THE C. F. 
 
 growth reqiiires this to be . so. Ton -were speaking a tew 
 lainutes ago of progress ; how do yon define progress in its 
 social sense ? " " Adyanoenient in civilization." "That is 
 not a definition, bnt an alternative phrase denoting the same 
 fact. Ton may begin by determining that it has something 
 to do with thonght, and yon may go on to define it as the 
 widening of the realm of independent thonght. This may or 
 may not be accompanied by the gathering of Mnnicipal Com- 
 mittees and the bnilding of town-halls ; and it may or may 
 not lead to the adoption of chairs, and knives and forks, in 
 domestic life. If we wish to estimate the advance in civiliza- 
 tion which a people have made nnder a foreign Government, 
 we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by any show of 
 railway stations, post-offices, school-buildings, and the like ; 
 we must remember that humane conquerors are often in the 
 habit of raising such things with an eye to their own comfort, 
 and the gratifying of homely predilections. We must look a 
 little further, and listen not a little ; we must observe the 
 habits and hearken to the conversation of many members of 
 the prosperous classes. If land-holders, merchants, and long- 
 pursed shop-keepers are generally illiterate, and ill-informed 
 of matters beyond the circle of their private interest, we must 
 conclude that, when the imperial legions go, there will be 
 little of the empire left but ruins." " don't let us speak of 
 the imperial legions going," said I ; " those legionaries are 
 the pleasantest fellows." He laughed, and we rode out of 
 the desolate court-yard, where our horses hoof -beats made a 
 hollow sound. Passing rapidly along the roadway towards 
 the town, we came upon a brand-new school-house of best 
 brick, with barge-boards and eaves-boards of carved wood,, and 
 the date of its building graven in stone. The Collector 
 reined in his horse and alighted ; and a shabby wmallim* came 
 
 * Teacher, 
 
CONVERSATIONS WITH A DISTEICT OFFICER. 141 
 
 from witkin and made his best salaam. Ragged and unkempt 
 urchins, with wooden tablets covered with chalk figures in 
 their hands, stole gingerly to the doorway, 
 . " This," said the Collector gravely to me, as he turned on his 
 heel at the threshold, "is an institution for helping on Pro- 
 gress through the villages, by lessening the friction of the 
 wheels of her rustic cart. Plenty of English grease is employ- 
 ed. That other kind of wheel on which you saw me employ- 
 ed, belonged to the car, or carriage, of the goddess, in which 
 she rides when she pays visits of State to the gentry. A 
 slight error had been made. While the wheels of the cart 
 were being built lightly as for a carriage, the carriage wheels 
 were left as heavy and clumsy as those of a cart. This I was 
 attemptiag to correct. Don't say anything to this teacher 
 here about cart-wheels, for he won't understand you, but ask 
 Vn'm about his pupils." 
 
 The mwallim, being interrogated, said — " Alas ! your honor, 
 the parents still say that it is like slaying their sons to send 
 them to school. They are so prejudiced. They think that 
 learning is all very well for the rich, but that the poor man's 
 son is made useless and idle by knowledge. And the worst 
 of it is," continued the schoolmaster, "that the rich men's 
 children don't come here to learn; they refuse to squat down 
 with the paupers." 
 
 " It is indeed a most deplorable thing," exclaimed the hy- 
 pochondriac Collector, " that when we have thrown the feast 
 of learning open, none but the lame and the halt will come in, 
 and they only on compulsion. It is a bad thing for a people 
 that knowledge should spread first among the inferior ranks, 
 and not pass gradually down from higher class to lower. 
 The instructed plebeians despise the ignorant men of birth, 
 and the men of birth look down on knowledge as vulgar. 
 While prostitutes attend your girls' schools, is it not to be 
 expected that women of virtue will shrink from a reputation 
 
142 IN THE C. P. 
 
 for learning ? It seems to me that the education of those 
 of lowly station is a small matter in comparison with the im- 
 portance of informing those of high degree. Enlightenm^ent 
 commonly generates a desire to do good ; and it is a misfor- 
 tune when the willingness' and the power are divorced. At 
 present, the men of capital and the land-owners are mostly 
 sitting in silly darkness, while the needy men, whose vision 
 has been cleared, are struggling fiercely for positions in life. 
 It is time that we should open the eyes of the wealthy blind." 
 "But how is this to be done ?" was the quick question which 
 caught him on the threshold. " In my district, to a great 
 extent, by personal influence," said the Collector, — saying 
 which he entered the school. I, having work elsewhere that 
 morning, rode on. 
 
 PAGHAL. 
 
 It is the Feast of Laughter — 
 Laugh first, be sober after, 
 
 Laugh out thy fill of glee ! 
 Laugh madly and yet dafter 
 Till every joist and rafter 
 
 Rings back thy laugh to thee ! 
 
 II. 
 
 It is the Feast of Fooling — 
 Fool first, then think of schooling 
 
 Thyself to gravity ! 
 Quick, keep thy wits from cooling- 
 From reason's despot ruling 
 
 Fun sets the senses free ! 
 
CONVBESATIONS WITH A DISTEICT OFFICER. 143 
 
 III. 
 
 It is the Feast of Gladness — 
 Of Youth's midsummer-madrLess, 
 
 And thou Mirth's Queen shalt be ! 
 All echoes of all sadness, 
 All images of badness 
 
 Before thy laugh shall flee ! 
 
 IT. 
 
 We feast to-day, to-morro-w, 
 In scorn, in scorn of sorrow — 
 
 And this our dance of glee 
 A subtler sense doth borrow 
 From some far na.orrow's sorrow 
 
 And memories to be ! 
 
 CONVERSATIONS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 
 Paet III. 
 
 It was at the Collector's dinner-table that I first met 
 Captain Vigilant. He struck me as being clean-shaven and 
 well-drilled, as having a flexible smile and fixed ideas, as be- 
 ing a humane conqueror with a terrible hatred of " nigs." 
 With such a force did his quiet declarations of animosity to, 
 and his suggestions for tyrannical treatment of, the mild 
 Hindoo strike me (a simple youth still moist-lipped from the 
 milk of English pMlanthropy), that I half shuddered as he 
 spoke. I thought .of a thumb^screw imbeded in roses, and 
 could see the pink petals edging over the agony of the iron's 
 prey. 
 
 With the wine, our talk fell on the transfer of land. The 
 Captain was suavely annunciative of ruin. " It is a fatal po- 
 
144 IN THE C. P. 
 
 licy," he said ; " the little loyalty that there eTer was in the 
 country is dying out. What can you expect when the old 
 landholders are being fast ousted by a crowd of hanias ? * It 
 makes me melancholy to think of what we may be coming to. 
 Of course these people should not be allowed to touch the 
 land." 
 
 " It is a strange thing to me," said the Collector, " that while 
 at home there is a growing cry that land is artificially hinder- 
 ed from coming into the market, here in India a cry has 
 sprung up that land must be artificially hindered from coming 
 there. This latter cry, apparently, is bom of the notion that 
 all banias are rascals, and all old proprietors excellent men. 
 It is true that many of the rascals by thrift and industry have 
 gathered their wealth, and that many of the excellent men 
 by prodigality did squander theirs ; but what smacks of 
 the ledger must needs be flung out for what savors of the 
 Realty." 
 
 "A great responsibility rests on the shoulders of the 
 malguzar,"f said I (recalling a passage in^some report which I 
 had read), " who has contracted with the Government on the 
 one hand, and with his ryots J on the other ; and it is anomal- 
 ous that he should be able to shift his obligations to the 
 shoulders of the first man who sues out a long bill against 
 him." 
 
 " Excellently delivered," said the Collector. " A bumper 
 of claret for so fine a sentence !" 
 
 I replied in a period equally rounded : — " Folly and incom- 
 petence in a place of trust will natuaUy develop anomalies, and 
 it is better that the bearer of public responsibilities, who has 
 become encumbered in the discharge of them by the pressure 
 
 * Shop-keepers. 
 t Landlord, 
 t Tenants. 
 
C0KTEESATI0N3 WITH A DISTRICT OPFXCEE. 145 
 
 of obligations purely private, slioiild resign Ms post to a man 
 less shackled and more careful." 
 
 "'Careful !" ejaculated the Captain. " These banias are 
 not careful ! I sometimes think that a little of the lash, 
 judiciously administered, would perhaps make them so. They 
 do not salaam, to one in the bazaars now !" 
 
 " Afterall, what does onefear ?" continued the banda-nawaz* 
 of the Zillah cutcherry f — "that the men who have made their 
 all through British protection of trade will be colder suppor- 
 ters than the descendants of fighting men whom British con- 
 quest tamed ? A bania, it is true, may be incapable of 
 gratitude, but his disposition is naturally towards peace." 
 
 "Bamas peaceful! They are the most quarrelsome people 
 in the world," said the military man. "The other day, in the 
 bazaar, I saw one shopkeeper strike another in the heat of 
 controversy about two pice on the debit side. A crowd of 
 antagonistic sympathizers assembled ; and there might have 
 been a general disturbance but for the discovery of a thief at 
 work on the grain bags." 
 
 " Exactly," said the Collector, " an appreciation of the value 
 of private property, as such, is the best safeguard against popu- 
 lar commotion. I may go on to remark that the greedy shop- 
 keeper is not unknown in England, and that his base frauds 
 and adulterations there have been matters of comment ere now. 
 Let us remember, however, that growth is always from lower 
 forms to higher. The wholesale dealer has risen out of the 
 pedlar, and the merchant is but a development of the carrier. 
 Between Sam Slick and George Peabody there is certain social 
 interval; butacuteness in looking after private interests is the 
 link between the two. Acuteness in the raw state is vulpine 
 and even lupine ; by a widening of the range of ideas only, it 
 
 • " Cherisher of servsmta : an honorific term of address. 
 +, District Court. 
 
146 IN THE C. P. 
 
 becoiaes manly. This widening of tlie range of ideas is enabled 
 by wealth, whicli gives time for education, general tLongbt, 
 and the looking about one. The process of gain, therefore, 
 however disagreeable to the by-standers, is to be respected for 
 its ultimate instrumentalities, and in the dirty hunia of to-day 
 we may learn to behold the liberal land-owner of the future." 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" ejaculated the Captain, " there would 
 be no more shikar !" 
 
 " But," said I, "I fear that the spirit of gain might play 
 banefuUy over the interest of the ryots, sucking the folk dry 
 even, and casting them away. There would be no bond of 
 attachment between landlord and tenant, because their rela- 
 tionship would have no history." 
 
 " Better so than have a history of relationship characterized 
 by indifEerence or exaction on the one side and poverty on the 
 other. The old proprietors are not such models of enlighten- 
 ed landlordism, but that we can afford to lose a few of them." 
 
 "A nightmare were better than this," said the Captain to 
 me ; " to be heavily visited in one's reveries of the day by the 
 ogre-like phantom of a hania turned liberal land-owner is a 
 gruesome penance for such a man as our friend here. If I 
 were he, I would try incantations, and sing coaxingly — 
 
 " Come to me in my dreams, for then 
 By day I shall be well again ! " 
 
 " I have heard," said I, " that down in Lower Bengal the 
 purse-made land-owners are not a class of men to be admired. 
 One pictures to oneself what would be the result, at home, of a 
 change which should put all Wardour Street in the country 
 seats of the Midlands." 
 
 " There are many Jews of the class who could buy estates if 
 they chose," replied the Collector ; " but the fact that they do 
 not do so is significant. It is a mistake to suppose that every 
 greedy trader who has a land mortgage-deed in his possession 
 
CONVEESATIONS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 147 
 
 is hungry to step into the shoes of the manorial lord. Land is 
 a commodity encumbered with many cares. Gathering rents 
 is a less exciting and a less profitable occupation than buying 
 in the lowest market and selling in the highest. Teeka Ram, 
 retired upon his warily bought acres, has a less cheerful eye 
 than Teeka Ram squatted at his old shop-front." 
 
 " He rem.inds me of a retired brewer trying to ignore the 
 existence of beer," said the Captain; " he puts on magnifi- 
 cent clothes, talks of his gaun,* covets to become an Honorary 
 Magistrate, and drives in a varnished bullock-coach. Certain- 
 ly, I am reminded of a few friends at home." 
 
 " Some are wise, and some are foolish," said the Collector; 
 "but even the foolish, in their anxiety to behave with proprie- 
 ty in a new position, are more ready to accept suggestions 
 than the men of unawakened wits. Readiness to accept sug- 
 gestions is a step on the stairs of progress." 
 
 " Can't you fancy," said the Captain .to me, " that the 
 Collector often makes very poetic and finely associative 
 suggestions ? For instance, , while he is exhibiting his 
 favourite cart-wheel, will he not be sure to address the 
 gentry on the subject of the Wheel of Fortune (probably 
 a cart-wheel, you know) ? With what a readiness they 
 would appreciate his rendering of the celebrated verse — 
 turn and we smile, the lords ofmawy lands !" . 
 
 " I confess to a weakness for carpentering," said the Collec- 
 tor, " but there is an underlying idea. I like to forget, now 
 and then, that I am either Collector or Magistrate, and to im- 
 agine myself a practical suggestor of plain reforms. My assist- 
 ant imstaris-^ will communicate to their brethren what they 
 have learnt, in a dull unreasoning way. Were the gentry of 
 the age sufficiently intelligent, I might lecture to them on 
 the subject, as you suggest, and point out that the economy 
 
 * Village (gamw.) 
 ■}■ Master-artificers. 
 
148 IN THE C. P. 
 
 of knowledge, for instance, is illustrated hj the spokes of a 
 wheel ; but seeing them as they are, men ill able to grasp abs- 
 tract ideas, however quick to a concrete example, I prefer to 
 scheme for making their sons have broader views. What a 
 help it were to Government to have a generation of magnani- 
 mous gentry — ;to say nothing of the pleasure of being able to 
 start social science in a mulahat.*" " And so fill the land with 
 sentimental orators? Already the air rings with their out- 
 pourings in University-English. When the ancient Britons, 
 under the Roman rule, took to speechifying at Lyons and else- 
 where; is it recorded that their countrymen were thereby made 
 more practically self -helping ?" 
 
 " The process of fermentation always develops more or less 
 of froth," said the Collector. " It will work off in time, Cap- 
 tain. Meanwhile, seeing many a rich man's son in my dis- 
 trict receiving but a paltry education at the hands of a private 
 munshi on Rs. 8 a month, I reason strongly against such 
 unwisdom. If, I say, you object to Government schools, at 
 least establish efiSoient private ones among yourselves. Aman 
 Singh, of Raunpur, whom I respect as a man prompt to 
 seize upon sensible suggestions, has got three or four of his 
 neighbours to join him in paying Rs. 50 or Rs. 60 a month to 
 a well-qualified teacher, who takes their sons into training to- 
 gether. The joint education is of a superior kind to that 
 which was taught separately. I get some of the educated 
 young men who turn out of Government schools and hang 
 about cutcherry doors, to translate popular English works 
 about food, wealth, population, cultivation of the soil, and the 
 uses of capital ; and these translations are read and explained 
 to the students of Aman Singh's academy. Also I send a cer- 
 tain clever mistari, who learned his work in an English work- 
 shop out here, to show to the lads the use of various tools ; and 
 
 * Conversational visit. 
 
CONVBESATIONS WITH A DISTEICT OFFICER. 149 
 
 they have stirred up the mistaris of their own towns to come 
 and learn of him. Perhaps these efforts of mine are empty, 
 and the youths had better have been learning to read the well- 
 known description of the Banyan- tree in English, but — " 
 
 " And the wretched ignorant mazduris,*" said I ; " what do 
 you do for them. ?" 
 
 " I am going to let knowledge trickle down to them through 
 kindness," said the Collector. " In the first place, I cultivate 
 a wise kindness in those who have a power over them." 
 
 At the end of this long discourse, Captain Vigilant heaved a 
 deep sigh, and, mournfully shaking his head at the Collector, 
 exclaimed : — " Gracious* Heaven ! the spirit of Sir Thomas 
 More sits heavily upon you, ray poor friend. Listen to me, 
 and believe what I say. This Utopianism will bring you to no 
 good. The greatest optimist has not yet been heard to speak of 
 kindness ' trickling down to coolies.' I see well that a military 
 training is needful for civil officers. You will never be of 
 any use to India until you are converted to my doctrine, viz., 
 that flogging is the only thing good for the niggers of this 
 country." 
 
 " Y'ovL are of the standing army," said the Collector, smiling. 
 
 " And you are of the police," rejoined the Captain. "Ma- 
 gistrates are but the necessary complements of a patrolling 
 force." 
 
 " But I am something more than an arbiter of order," said 
 the Collector. " When I leave the Bench and go a-marching 
 I become an Agent of Progress." 
 
 " God bless you for it !" said the Captain. 
 
 We lit cigars, and went out into the open. 
 
 * Labourers. 
 
150 IN THE C. P. 
 
 A SPRAT. 
 
 I. 
 
 On a rude rook stair, 
 Palm fringed and broken, 
 She from wild stock there 
 Plucked a green token. 
 Set it where throbbed her 
 Heart with mirth's wiling, 
 And, while I robbed her, 
 Looked away smiling. 
 
 TI. 
 
 Night was the fairer 
 For that morn's laughter — 
 There will be rarer 
 Gladness hereafter. 
 On her life's journey 
 Mirth be within her — 
 Death is the tourney 
 Where I will win her ! 
 
 CONVERSATIOlSrS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 
 
 Paet IV. 
 The Collector sat in the door of his tent. Coming under 
 the cool shade of mango-boughs, I alighted from my horse 
 with glee and saluted him. " Captain Vigilant has been out 
 shooting, and has not shot anything," he said. " Hear this 
 extract from a letter of his just received : — ' They are aU the 
 same. Is there anything in the solar ray which blazes on 
 this plain here to touch the minds of men and make them 
 
CONVERSATIONS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 151 
 
 incapable of freshness ? Must all regard for the graces of 
 life orumble down to a dusty despair ? Thank God that the 
 wheat is of one greenness, and the broad jowar-blades of 
 another ; that the massoor and the cotton are tinted of differ- 
 ent hues. As one burnt grass-patch is to another, so is Bee- 
 gaspore to the villages about it. Take the unit — the typical 
 house. Walls of mud simple, or of mud cast into the shape 
 of bricks. A loose scattering of tiles cast as roofing upon a 
 franiework of sticks and bamboos. A small chahootra* of mud 
 before the door, with a mud parapet, half a foot high, running 
 round it. A smearing of cow-dung over all except the roof. 
 Lump together half a hundred of such dwellings without 
 regard to order, or whether front faces back, and let the 
 spaces for passage, between, be as narrow and tortuous as pos- 
 sible. Tie up cows on the chabootras, and let loose curs in every 
 alley. Contrive that a mangy tattoo with its forelegs hobbled 
 together shall come halting through the broadest lane. Con- 
 fine not the naked children with the marks of ' chenchak 'f 
 scabs upon them. Fill the houses with unkempt, half-clad, 
 rough-featured women, and let a sprinkling of - lean-legged 
 old men linger, squatted at the doorways. Shed hot sunshine 
 over all, and a sickly savour of dust between the sunbeams, 
 and you have a perfect village of the Beegaspore type.' " 
 
 "The description is very eloquent," said I, lolling back in an 
 arm-chair. " It is also very just," said the Collector, "but it 
 is hardly fair to attribute manifestations of spiritual straitnesB 
 and darkness to the influence of broad sunlight. When a man 
 is too poor to be able to take a pride in self and its belong- 
 ings, or too ignorant to change the meanness of his surround- 
 ings by aid of the wealth that he has, his home and all his 
 wearing will not make a fair show in the eyes of the civilized 
 rich." 
 
 * Platfonn. 
 t SmaJl-pox. 
 
152 IN THE C. P. 
 
 "Its the want of grass," said I, "that disgusts one: a patch 
 of green in a dusty village would act upon the eyes like 
 brandy and water upon the general frame." The Collector 
 rose and began walking to and fro. It is his usual way of 
 beginning a lecture. Feeling cynical that day, I fixed my 
 eyes on the hairy and grinning populace who gathered, as if 
 to listen, upon the boughs above us. "Don't be too familiar," 
 I muttered, "you will find that he hates a good many of you 
 all the same." 
 
 " In the town near which we are now encamped," com- 
 menced the lecturer, " there is only one building which I can 
 call a house, and it belongs to a wealthy hania. The Mal- 
 guzar,* with an income exceeding that of the trader, inhabits 
 a hut which is but a little less wretched than the clustered 
 cabins of the daily labourers about it. He buries much of his 
 money in the ground, not from miserliness, but from igno- 
 rance of what he might safely do with it, after building 
 a big temple in the manner of his ancestors. When he 
 goes abroad, he rides on a softly.ambling horse, with a 
 martingale of coloured cloths, and is followed by a crowd 
 of ragged footmen, bearing each a sword and targe. No more 
 is needed to give him dignity in the eyes of the towns- 
 people ; he is their hereditary lord, and observes the fashions 
 of his forefathers. The bania, on the other hand, being an 
 upstart — a novus homo — must look to the present for the 
 materials of his renown. He knows the influence of wealth. 
 He bodies forth his success in forms which his experience of 
 cities and men enables him to reproduce. Looking upon his 
 two-storied and turreted house, on the dark, carven pillars of 
 the verandah, and on the gilded rails of the gallery, he sees 
 not only himself and his fortune reflected, as it were, in brick 
 and wood, but he sees also, around it, an inseparable influence 
 
 * Landowner. 
 
CONVEESATIONS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 153 
 
 which will make him respected by others in proportion as his 
 building is more excellent than theirs. I myself behold that 
 enterprising trafficker's house with an exceeding joy. It 
 seems to have a voice for me saying — ' Only leave us alone, and 
 you will see what we will do for our town. We want friend- 
 ship, not pupilage.' " " Ah !" I interjected," and how about 
 the sanitary arrangements, the drainings, and the sweepings ? 
 Depend upon it, the enterprising trafficker has a be-muddled 
 pool, or channel, from a well, in his courtyard, beside which ho 
 loves to squat, and to rub his piece of woody fibre on his 
 gums.* I never could understand the Hindoo's liking for 
 slops." 
 
 " By-and-bye," went on the lecturer, not noticing the 
 interruption, " as trade grows, there will be a row of such 
 houses built, and then we shall have a ' gunj.' Merchants 
 who have seen the cleanliness of municipal towns will come to 
 me, and beg that I will arrange to get theirs made a munici- 
 pality also ; but I will steadfastly refuse !" He uttered this last 
 sentence in a triumphant tone, and, stopping in his walk and 
 looking round at me, seemed to wait for a note of exclamation. 
 I silently raised my brows. The monkeys all gathered to the 
 end of a bough which hung just over the spot where the Collec- 
 tor stood, and stooping towards him as far as safety permitted, 
 seemed to listen intently for what might come. " For why ?" 
 proceeded the Collector. " Their end they will be able to 
 achieve in another way; and this resort to taxation by sanction 
 of law has sometimes an artful motive, and often unfortunate 
 results. Salt merchants will propose a tax on cattle-sales, and 
 BO keep their town sweet at small cost to themselves. To admi- 
 nister the funds of a municipality, either a European officer 
 or a native Government official, imbued with European ideas, 
 must have a voice in the Committee, and, then, who knows what 
 
 * A piece of ffeem-wood is a favourite Hindoo tootli-bruBli. 
 
154 IN THE C. P. 
 
 perfectly square, but unnecessary, market-places, or what 
 town-halls in the Byzantine style may not be forced into 
 being ? ' No, No ! ' I will reply" (and here the Collector stamp- 
 ed his foot and shook his forefinger in sS rigorously negative 
 a manner that all the monkeys took fright and fled away into 
 the inmost recesses of the grove) ; " if you wish to set public 
 sweepers a- working and to keep them at it, subscribe among 
 yourselves a few rupees monthly, and let him who is the fore- 
 most in credit among you be mayor of your unchartered corpora- 
 tion. I will lend him all the might of my personal and official 
 influence. If you cannot walk even thus far alone, you are un- 
 worthy of being gazetted members of a council for the gov- 
 ernment of your town." 
 
 "But surely," I said, "municipalities do much in the way 
 of beautifying, and in removing that dusty sameness of which 
 the Captain complains. I was visiting lately the principal 
 town of the district next to this, and I found that the mean 
 appearance of the shambling ' gol bazaar'* had been dignified 
 by two large entrances of plastered brick, with central and side 
 arches, after the manner of the Roman triumphal structures. 
 They gave a classic air to the place. 
 
 " Quite delightful," exclaimed my chief, " and was there no 
 inscription over the arches — ' Divo Smithsono,' or the like ?" 
 
 "No," replied I, "they were perfectly plain; and the plas- 
 ter was coming off in places." 
 
 " What a pity!" sighed the Collector, "the people would 
 have appreciated the Latin as much no, doubt, as they appre- 
 ciate the arches. And the houses of the town in general — 
 were they of a character to harmonise well with the Smith- 
 Bonian monuments, or were they of the tumble-down kind ?" 
 
 "Oh, of the most wretched," answered I, "and the whole 
 place bore a close resemblance to the description contained in. 
 Captain Vigilant's letter. It seemed a great disorder." 
 
 in a " CircuB." 
 
CONVERSATIONS WITH A DISTRICT OFFICER. 155 
 
 " Believe me," cried my pHlosophic instructor, " I am 
 sometimes inclined to tliink that the idea of the street proper, 
 that is to say, of a straight road with houses ranged in even 
 line on both sides of it, and of the crossing of snoh a street 
 by all other streets at right angles, is not properly Asiatic, 
 but is orginally Roman. It arose in the camp, and thence 
 passed into English fortified towns with their north, south, 
 east and west gates. The system was preserved by custom, 
 and now we modern English, abroad, are quite unhappy if 
 we find an absence of the same regular principle in Indian 
 cities and villages. But natives of Hindoostan are not 
 naturally given to the rigid uniformity of straight lines 
 and right-angles, in any department of life. If you remem- 
 ber, their armies were always more or less of mobs upon 
 the march ; their methods of ornamentation prove the rule ; 
 and even the modern husbandman indulges his fancy by 
 making a leash of curves at the top of the long, straight fur- 
 rows. Upon this capricious, irregular nature of the Hindoos 
 descends the rigid mould of English-formed municipalities, 
 and crushes it up pitilessly. 1 remember hearing of a Muni- 
 cipal Secretary who issued an imperious order that all the 
 houses in a certain row should be made to conform, without 
 delay, to a uniform plan. This King Magician's behest was 
 done ; but there being no wageless work-demons at their call, 
 the dwellers in that row got sadly into debt in consequence, 
 and have not got out of it yet." 
 
 "The ancient ehabootra," said I, " must answer for much 
 of that disorder in house-building of which we complain. It 
 is like the awkward garden of a semi-detached villa. Hari 
 Ram fancies a western aspect for the platform where he squats 
 of an evening, while Lachman prefers a southern front. 
 Without a little nulm,* how shall we make the crooked 
 straight ?" 
 
 * Tyranny. 
 
156 IN THE C. P. 
 
 " There is no. need to make it straight," replied my mentor, 
 "unless sanitary and administrative arrangements are hinder- 
 ed much by its being crooked. In England, regularity is gen- 
 erally secured through the fact that houses, or cottages, are 
 built up in blocks and rows by contractors and landlords, and 
 scarce a man builds for himself. This fact brings to my 
 mind a suggestion for municipalities that have thousands to 
 waste on Smithsonian monuments. It is that they should be- 
 come builders of habitable tenements, ranged orderly and fin- 
 ished neatly, after the fashion of police lines ; and lease them 
 out to approved occupants. If this proposition seems too 
 hazardous or preposterous, let me put forward another. A 
 municipality of the sort described might modestly arrange, if 
 there be no local trade in them, to supply (pardon, ye exalt- 
 ed ones, the humble level of thought) good tiles at a cheap 
 rate, and so make water-tight and fire-resisting houses more 
 common. As a final idea, let me recommend that the same 
 municipality, if it dislike the business, give the whole town 
 the luxury of a uniform coat of whitewash at the proper sea- 
 sons. In this way, we might even attaia to smartness in. the 
 mofussil." 
 
 " I like that idea of the cottages," said I. " Immortality 
 (the ambition, as you describe it, of district officers in their 
 building schemes) might be ensured by the discreet painting 
 on of a name. Thus ' Smithson Row' would suggest the 
 glory of that Vice-President under whose auspices it rose into 
 being." 
 
 " I beseech you, however, to remember," said the Collector, 
 assuming a very earnest tone, " that these cottages would not 
 be of hrick—not in this district at all events. In the cate- 
 chism, of every Assistant Magistrate it should be written — 
 ' Q- — ^What is the most foolish thing that an executive officer 
 with public money to spend, can do ? A. — Rush into red brick. 
 Why should boys' schools, girls' schools, hospitals, dispensaries, 
 
PIPETTE. 167 
 
 all be of red brick ? Near the Police Lines, of mud- walled 
 cottages, here, there is a Public Works-madness of red brick, 
 growing up in the form of a Police Hospital. Why should a 
 man who lives in a mud- walled house, when he is well, be 
 supposed to require a brick- walled one when he falls sick ? 
 Those shadeless gable ends, however handsomely finished, will 
 not be cooler than a mud- wall with a verandah of bamboos and 
 mats coming low down before it. Think of the difference of 
 cost, too ; of the cruel waste of means taken from the very 
 bread of the people. Are we justified in doing these things, 
 in gratifying our taste for English architecture at the expense 
 of millions ? All honour to the man who resists the modem 
 mania for monuments and, steadfastly shutting his ears to all 
 suggestions of ' make it puaJca,' is contented, and represents 
 to his superior the people's satisfaction with, mud-walled 
 schools, mud- walled hospitals, mud- walled cook-houses, and 
 mud- walled dispensaries. If a time come when statues shall 
 be fashionable in the towns of this province, I shall send my 
 earliest subscription towards a statue for Mm." 
 
 PIPETTE. 
 
 Do you remember Pipette, 
 
 That morning, long ago. 
 
 When the path to the hill with dew was wet, 
 
 And your face to the fragrant bloom was set 
 
 Of the Orchard of Angot ? 
 
 Tou said that you could ne'er forget 
 
 The gardens of Angot ; 
 
 Tou wished that we " had never met 
 
 Since love was bitter as the sloe — " 
 
 Yes, " bitter as the sloe ! " 
 
158 IN THE C. P. 
 
 II. 
 
 I can remember, Pipette, 
 
 Tour pale cheek's deepening rose, 
 
 As I likened the hues in its oval set 
 
 To the flowers in the orchard close ; 
 
 And while your foot the grass did fret, 
 
 As if the hlades were foes, 
 
 I kissed your lips with dew-drops wet, 
 
 Lest love, long tried, shotild grow morose, 
 
 I^est love should grow morose ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Was it only in sport, Pipette ? 
 
 Tour heart is cold, I know — 
 
 But the iciest breast may be kindled yet 
 
 By another's passionate glow ; 
 
 Tour spirit*s life awhile was let 
 
 From its airy ebb and flow, 
 
 Till some one taught you to forget — 
 
 When apple boughs were white with snow 
 
 And the hill was draped in snow ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Do you think on the past. Pipette ? 
 !Now you are graver grown. 
 And other lips your lips have met, 
 Sealed up the portals of regret 
 And claimed you for their own ? 
 Tou said, " you never could forget !" 
 Does my love's after-glow 
 Cling like the summer glory set 
 On the clear orchards of Angot ? 
 Dear orchards of Angot. 
 
A PAPEE CHASE. 159 
 
 A PAPER CHASE. 
 
 All the servants were on the house-top, gazing over the 
 scraggy palm-trees and the more voluptuous mangoes, to where 
 the hunt was tailing ofE. With cries and gesticulations they 
 indicated to the late comer that he m.ust make haste. He made 
 haste, and overtook, first, a man who had lost his pith-Kat and 
 had dismounted to pick it up, and then — in a cluster of 
 shanties which euphemism might call a village — several 
 mounted gentlemen and a mounted lady, who were scaring the 
 picketted buffaloes and the unpicketted children with hasty 
 searchings for the trail. Presently some one " chortles " in 
 a voice supposed to resemble the cry of a hound that 
 throws ofE — and away goes the chase over ash-mounds and 
 chabootras, and into the open beyond. A steep hill obtrudes 
 itself — one of those treeless, hard-featured hills which lie about 
 like spoil-mounds in the neighbourhood of Cobra city. It is a 
 hard " breather," and nobody says a word till he gets to the top. 
 Then, what a top ! It is like a potato-garden, with all the 
 tubers dug up and petrified by a severe frost. A pilgrimage 
 to Loretto, with unboiled peas in one's shoes, would be nothing 
 to a thousand paces, in the best of boots, over this plateau. 
 As the horses put their hoofs down, the jars of iron against 
 stone send sympathetic and agonizing thrills through each 
 rider's heart. One thinks of iron-feruled umbrellas stamping 
 on sensitive corns ; and of a score of other painful analogies. 
 Whey, in the name of mischief, did the paper-scented " Hare" 
 choose this line of country ? The great " Earl Doorm " abjures 
 him in a few loud and expressive phrases. Poor "Porthos " is 
 glad of the breathing- time which the slackened race among the 
 boulders allows. There is a cool wind blowing over the height ; 
 and in the cheeks of " Santanella " there comes a glow — 
 "As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night." 
 
160 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Or is it the reflection of the sunset which now tints the 
 western clouds ? Small time for poetic thought. " Sieur La- 
 moitie " sounds upon his horn ; and helter-skelter they fol- 
 low him. They haye got to the edge of the hill, and a steep 
 descent is before them. The Scotch may talk of a " stout 
 heart to the stae brae," but that is looking at it from helow : 
 viewed from above, the situation is better described by some 
 such phrase as " a limber leg to the loose bluff." In the 
 course of the precipitate and precipitous progress to the 
 level, the remembrance that animal life is based on an osseous 
 frame- work is confusedly mingled with memories of the 
 atom- streams of the Lucretian system that — 
 
 " Ruining along the illimitable inane 
 Ply on to clash together again, and make 
 Another and another frame of things 
 For ever." 
 
 At last the bottom is reached. The trail now lies along 
 a rocky gully, where dwarf palas shrubs struggle miserably 
 for life. The ingenious Hare came this way because a nullah 
 lies ahead, which will give to the chase all the eclat of a water- 
 jump. Every huntsman is supposed to be burning to achieve 
 distinction by jumping. It must be admitted that the per- 
 formance fell - mostly short of expectation. " Sieur La- 
 moitie " and " Santanella," indeed, got over with credit, but 
 when heavy " Perthes " came to the brink, his steed stopped to 
 look before it leaped, and the treacherous bank gave way. The 
 great " Earl Doorm " cried — " Don't excite yourself — take 
 it quietly, — as I do !" and deliberately walked his horse across. 
 Thereafter the scent was lost; and the sad company might 
 have wandered around till nightfall but for the guidance of 
 a canny hound, who had got a wrinkle from the hare as to the 
 way he was going to run. He strikes across country and 
 catches up the scent a half-mile nearer home. This man- 
 
A PAPEE CHASE. 161 
 
 ceuvre is almost fatal to the " Hare," who was taking it quietly 
 with a young companion. He has to fly for his life. With 
 loud view-halloos the hunters gallop in pursuit. The ground 
 is varied with patches of black cotton soil, which the rain has 
 rendered soft and plastic. The hoofs of " Porthos's " horse 
 make terrible pitfalls in this, and Earl Doorm darkens the air 
 with flying clods. One of these, falling on a small man, 
 went near to dismounting him. Suddenly, there appears in 
 the way a stone wall, about the length and height of a turn- 
 pike-gate, which, from the green leaves which decorate its 
 summit and its want of connection with any adjoining object, 
 seems clearly to have been put there " on purpose." The horses 
 object to such a practical joke, and " jink" past it. The pony 
 ridden by the Hare's companion had been deceived by the 
 green leaves, and had come to grief here sadly. It is found 
 waiting around, with broken knees. Meanwhile the " Hare" 
 himself is going like Dick Turpin, and throughout the flounder- 
 ing m.ud of the fields there is no overtaking him. The hun- 
 ters splash along in gloomy silence. " Porthos's" steed is " all of 
 a lather " with foam ; and the beard of the great "Earl Doorm" 
 is dirt-bespeckled. It is hoped that the " Hare" will lie by 
 in a hollow till the chase can overhaul him ; but he has no 
 such intentions. He goes straight through the Police Lines 
 to the D. S. P.'s house, and there dismounts. It is very exas- 
 perating to see him standing coolly on the gravel ; and the 
 D. S. P.'s hedges sufEer from the wild inroad of the tired 
 pursuers. " Santanella" flies the quick-set beautifully; 
 while " Porthos " makes no small breach in the mendi.* The 
 D. S. P. is good-natured; and not only forgives them all, 
 but spreads a fair table with refreshments. By-and-by, the 
 " Hare's" companion comes in on a soivar'sf horse ; and the 
 ladies make life less bitter for him. 
 
 * A plant uaed for hedging, the leaves of whioh yield a red dye. 
 t Mountedpolioeman. 
 
162 IN THE C. P. 
 
 TRESSES. 
 
 Shake back thy golden tresses, 
 For surely it were sin 
 Tteir silky wildernesses 
 Should circle and veil in 
 What now my vision blesses, 
 Dear emblems of caresses — 
 Curved lips and dainty chin ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Shake back thy shining tresses, 
 Lest, wiiid bestirred, they float 
 And lap in filmy dresses 
 Or gird, as with a moat. 
 That keep which love confesses, 
 With sweet awe him possesses — 
 The white tower of thy throat ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Yes, part thy jealous tresses, 
 And let the anxious day 
 Cast off its wan distresses. 
 And catch the welcome gay 
 Which every glance expresses 
 From shyly-lashed recesses. 
 Where happy love-lights play ! 
 
GOSSIP. 163 
 
 GOSSIP. 
 
 One will always hear plenty of cheap outcry against Gossip," 
 but Gossip goes on famously all the same. Must not some 
 secret affinity with nature underlie this astounding vitality of 
 a depreciated habit ? It may be worth while to look into the 
 m.atter for a moment. I would draw a distinction between 
 malicious Gossip, which we sometimes call Scandal, and Gos- 
 sip of the innocent kind. And yet one glides into the other 
 so easily. I am inclined to think that in this subject, as in 
 others of a higher kind, ■ the moral quality of the matter is 
 much affected by the nature of the mind which approaches it. 
 A robust mind not only dips into pitch without being defiled, 
 but converts the element of immersion into something brilliant- 
 ly gaseous. The pinched intellect alone makes havoc of the 
 moral scene with its tarry splaahings. It is easy to be grave 
 and dull ; but gravity and dulness do not suit the needs of 
 humanity at every hour. Every man and woman of us 
 likes to play the fool now and again. Those gay revolutions 
 and evolutions to 'the sound of music, which we call dancing, 
 are but a muscular response to the craving "for an expression 
 which the delight of rhythmic sounds evokes in us. And 
 gossip is but the efEervescence in words of the enthusiasm of 
 confidence which attacks those who make a privacy in the 
 midst of a crowd. The communication of a thought which is 
 almost certain to find a sympathetic response in the bosom of 
 his or her friend, is a great joy to every human being. Expla- 
 nation, except on the ground of the expansion and fortifying of 
 the spiritual ego, is difficult ; but the fact remains. And this 
 ego, which finds such a satisfaction in that temporary extension 
 of its domain which results from the assent of others to its 
 thought, gains a new expansion when the constant rivalry of 
 third parties is momentarily abased by a flash of ridicule. 
 
164 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Nothing fascinates like tlie suggestion of the ridiculous ; so 
 that he who has a ludicrous tale to tell of another's faux pas 
 or another's foibles, warms the cockles of his friend's 
 heart, as well as his own. "Who can resist the temptation of an 
 enjoyment so generous ? Society subdues and limits the ex- 
 pression of self by its conventional forms. It is the elastic re- 
 coil from this compression which makes us pour out our 
 buoyant spirits in the private conferences of a friendly clique. 
 To make sure of touching a chord that will answer, we go at 
 once for the ridiculous, and rush into Gossip. A tag of 
 Gossip being thus the consigne which passes us within the 
 lines ■ of sympathy, we need not condemn the thing off-hand. 
 It is only a harmful implement when we make that appear 
 truth which is but raillery. 
 
 The mood of Gossip should be one of jest ; and every state- 
 ment made therein should be tailed off with a cracker of 
 mirth, to explode its serious meaning. Otherwise, we are 
 not gossips, but tale-bearers. 
 
 Thus, although the very basis of that satisfaction which 
 we find in Gossip lies in the exaltation and expansion of self, 
 yet, if there is an under- thought which seeks the depreciation 
 of another on account of a grudge, and we aim at killing two 
 birds with the same sling-stone of jest, Gossip not only ceases 
 to be innocent, but becomes base. 
 
 The arriere pensee reveals itself shortly, and sympathy 
 changes to contempt. 
 
 Inasmuch, however, as most mortals are frail, and the in- 
 dulgence of persolcal dislikes is only too common, contempt 
 is generally veiled, and the spirit of amusement carries the 
 day. None the less has Gossip got a bad name on account of 
 these airy virulences which it constantly evokes. Persons 
 who cannot trust their good nature should never gossip. 
 Having exercised this much restraint, they should not assume 
 a proud attitude, and refuse to listen or smUe when others 
 
LAUGHTER. 165 
 
 chatter. Nothing could be more absurd or disagreeable. 
 Eing Log among the frogs was nothing to it. They should 
 recognize the utility of Gossip, as able to throw down the sus- 
 pended crystals of cold indiTidualism in a precipitate of sym- 
 pathetic glee. They may correct any tendency to acidity by 
 the timely infusion of a little more essence of " chafE." Some 
 people try to oust Gossip altogether from their intercourse, or 
 to confine it to such subjects as the weather or the fashions. 
 Some horrify the ladies with the painful substitution of 
 " shop," and a few attempt politics with the aid of press-made 
 opinions. But these subjects do not "draw," like a tale be- 
 ginning — "Have you heard what So-and-So did?" The reason 
 being that personal details are concrete, easily apprehended 
 by the many, and instinct with vital force. So that ere long 
 the prosers are left speaking; and we all crowd round the man 
 with an anecdote. The nearer the scene of the anecdote, the 
 spicier it is ; but so long as no under-current of ill-feeling is 
 there, who would grudge him his audience ? I, for one, will 
 go and listen with the rest. 
 
 LAUGHTER. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Feiend, when we laugh, let all our laughter be 
 As the first beams which chase the dark away, 
 Or as the ripple of the ebb of day 
 In the green harbour of the mango tree. 
 II. 
 
 Not as the grim laugh of the shameless noon, 
 Which seres and smiles, and scorches where it rests ; 
 For bitterness is born of graceless jests 
 And echoes sadly to the mute, pale moon. 
 
166 IN THE C. P. 
 
 III. 
 
 If we would keep otir souls in just accord 
 Witli the proud spirit of the deep-pulsed world, 
 We must not be as leaves by mad winds whirled, 
 Nor cast our dignity in others' ward. " 
 
 IV. 
 
 " But wherefore rhymes m^y friend this rede to me ? 
 Has merry Lettice laughed his suit to scorn ? 
 Were her eyes ruthless ?" — "As the sparkling moiru ! 
 And her soul's mirth went o'er me like the sea ! " 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AT A BAND-STAND. 
 
 Thet say that the solar spots have strange influence upon 
 terrestrial affairs ; and it may be that the circling of the earth 
 round the sun has a mystical effect upon society. Else, why 
 that tendency in social gatherings to revolve round a centre ? 
 Pamilies are popularly said to form " circles." May-dances had 
 a floral pole within their rotary mazes ; and the worship of 
 the golden calf in latter, as in ancient days, has a centripetal 
 movement. Our Indian habit of marching round a band-stand 
 on many evenings of the week maybe due to the occult action 
 of the course referred to. It is extravagantly asserted that 
 music draws us, as a candle the moths ; but the poverty of this 
 explanation is exposed when we note how few of the promena- 
 ders give their ears to any sounds but those of the larynx. 
 Wben a tune is done, people talk more freely, as though rid 
 of a distraction. 
 
 The way in which music has become wedded to the drama, 
 has a subtle effect on the gait and bearing of all who walk 
 within sound of anything like an orchestra. Unconsciously, 
 
PHILOSOPHY AT A BAND-STAND. 167 
 
 the promenade becomes slightly "stagey." The m.en assume 
 the tragic buskin, the ladies are fluttery, the children join 
 hands and skip. One has an uneasy feeling that if the tune 
 grew brisker,, the policemen and the ayahs -would perform a 
 pantomime. 
 
 As in the solar system, the motions of the bodies ■within reach 
 of attraction are not equal, but diverse. One man bolts round 
 the course like a runaway horse ; others stalk like the ghosts 
 of the Scottish kings. The people on the benches are like 
 astronomers sweeping the heavens with their telescopes, with 
 here and there an unscientific romanticist pricking his ears for 
 the music of the spheres. Now they mark the ruddy aspect 
 of Mars, now they study the transit of Venus. Occasionally, 
 a new planet is discovered, and his orbital motion is nicely 
 calculated. A nebulous crowd of vulgar spectators is con- 
 stant in the background. Why should we wish to " see our- 
 selves as others see us ?" It is much greater fun to see others 
 as they don't see themselves. It is an admirable provision of 
 . Nature that we can't all be intimate friends. Intimacy des- 
 troys that spicily objective side of the relations between man 
 and his neighbour, which enables the one to scan and criticise 
 the other as a not wholly-understood entity, with unknown 
 powers of making himself ridiculous. We are very glad if 
 our non-intimate acquaintance makes himself ridiculous for 
 our amusement ; and if he does not do so, but is warily con- 
 ventional, he wins from us a certain faint respect. As it is 
 well to know whom to respect, there is plenty of reason for 
 telescopic observation of the planetary world of fashion. 
 
 Why ghosts are always dressed in white, I cannot imagine ; 
 unless the winding sheet is the toga or the chiton of the 
 unseen universe. Instances of a blue or a black ghost are 
 rare. Neither can I understand why a sombre suit of black 
 should be the only colour in which even the most spirituel of 
 male beings can genteelly manifest himself to ladies. The 
 
168 IN THE C. P. 
 
 fortunate wearer of a glossy black hat, a funeral frock-coat 
 and dusky trousers, possesses an inestimable adv^antage with 
 them over a friend in flannels. There can be no question that 
 the latter 's attire is the more picturesque, the more manly, 
 the more adapted for those easy and unrestrained movements 
 which win the name of grace — but the ladies condemn it. 
 The explanation probably is, that they do not like a man to 
 be too much at home in their company ; they like him to ■ 
 make a ring-fence of his collar, a stockade of his waistcoat, 
 and a penal discipline of his hat. When he approaches them 
 in these hobbles of the outfitter, they find him more amen- 
 able to order ; even as a horse is when broken by Rarey's 
 method. 
 
 An unbridled spirit would, one thinks, be undismayed by the 
 bonds of cloth and linen in which gentility swathes him, and 
 leap out into jocular freedom. But it was long ago pointed 
 out in " Sartor Besartus " that a man's apparel has a subjec- 
 tive as well as an objective effect. It is certain that the 
 " Urim and Thummim " made the Israelitish priest on whose 
 boBom they reposed twice as conscious of his high calling as a 
 vindicator of Truth and Light ; and snobbery has often been 
 fortified by the exibition of an Albert chain. A man's head- 
 gear has a particular effect upon his thoughts and motions. 
 The " chimney-pot " hat is allied to the pontifical mitre, and 
 to the crown worn by the king who built the pyramids — to 
 say nothing of the priests of Mithra. In a hat gorgeous with 
 such solemn associations, who could laugh or run ? At most, a 
 guarded smile and a measured crawl is possible. A sense of 
 esoteric solemnity attaches to the villainous "tile," and will 
 not permit of our being flippant in company where we wear it. 
 The blackness of the thing suggests that we are in mourning 
 for our own lost spirits. 
 
Eosis. 169 
 
 EOSES. 
 
 'Tis roses, roses, everywliere ! 
 There's not a vase within the room 
 But smiles with roses, fresh and fair ! 
 A dream of roses fills the air 
 With white and red and golden bloom, 
 And faint, ineffable perfume ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Blest be the hand that ciilled these flowers : 
 And this, the porcelain bowl which' brought 
 The fair brood of sunny hours. 
 Shall bear unto thy garden-bowers 
 The bee-like murmur of my thought 
 Which strives to thank thee as it ought ! 
 
 I echo not what erst was said, 
 That all things on this Indian plain, 
 Saving the flowers, an odour spread — 
 For now thy white rose, now thy red, 
 Makes such glad ferment in my brain 
 That joy is sharpened into pain ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 To every soul that tarries here 
 This work is fair, I trow, to make 
 One tended spot of earth more dear 
 With scented bloom for half the year, 
 And from the flowers such joy to take 
 As birds from dawning, when they wake. 
 
170 IN THE C. P. 
 
 OUR CROSSES. 
 
 We are great grumblers ; but, after all, we would not will- 
 ingly part with the crosses that make us grumble. They are 
 badges of distinction, and themes of boasting, as well as bur- 
 deny for our backs. Among other things, they justify the pay 
 we draw, though that seems little enough. It is pleasant to 
 dwell on them, although the dissertation be stale. 
 
 First of all, the climate. Of course, it is abominable. No 
 one would live in it longer than he could help. But it justifies 
 a good many extravagancies and a good deal of idle- 
 ness. One may sit with hands folded a whole May morning, 
 and yet feel that one has done something in living it through. 
 One may drink champagne every day, and be comforted with 
 the throught that the climate demands it. One can use bad 
 language to one's servants, and lay the blame on the liver. 
 
 Yes, the servants ; this is cross No. 2. Of course, they are 
 scoundrels, thieves, liars, and all the rest of it. They have, 
 however, this virtue : they do not retort on us our abuse. 
 They gratify, moreover, our petty passion for tyranny. Every- 
 one has observed how this passion is developed in children ; 
 how the child crows with delight when a living thing quails 
 before its up-lifted arm. So with boys who stone frogs 
 and torture cats. Upon the grown man in India there returns 
 the vague delight of his infancy and boyhood, when some 
 dark-skinned servitor cringes beneath his hand. In Eng- 
 land a blow would find an answering bu:ffiet : here one is safe 
 from a quid pro quo of that kind ; and the master of the house 
 can talk exultingly before his servants of the excellent drub- 
 bings he has given them from time to time. Surely there 
 is compensation in this ? 
 
 Then, the food ; how bad the food is. It cannot be denied 
 that the native article is very bad. One shudders to think 
 
OUR CROSSES. 171 
 
 of the scraggy fowls and the tough muttoii. But the greater 
 the difficulties, the greater the triumphs of success. Our 
 " gramfeds " are a source of pride and pleasure. We fatten 
 our own ducks and turkeys upon special principles ; and are 
 familiar with the voice of the guinea-fow^l. A well-provided 
 table wins more praise here than at home ; and a culinary 
 failure is a greater failure. ' Hence the development of the 
 artistic dinner- faculty in our wives. 
 
 Next, the society. How dull we are ! What " dowdies " in 
 dress !. How slovenly the men show themselves ! How 
 " shoppy " the talk is 1 How monotonous is the daily round ! 
 To these meanings one can only reply, that Europe gains by 
 contrast, and we shall enjoy our leave the more. Another 
 fact to be remembered is, that Anglo-Indians are reputed bans 
 compagnons. There is an absence of gSne about them, which 
 astonishes the stiff-collared stay-at-homes. This is due to 
 our Indian circumstances. We learn to dispense with much 
 ceremony, and to do our best to be friends with our neighbours. 
 A quarrel is inconvenient in a cock-pit. Even a rat and a 
 cat will forget their natural enmity if you make them' wretch- 
 ed in a tub. Common adversity reconciles many foes. 
 
 The ladies grow to be heroines in their endurance of trials, 
 and can afford to smile at the narrow experience of less travel- 
 led English women. Where is the credit of getting through 
 life in a cheerful vein, if all the world and his wife are ready 
 at the door to assist you ? It is something to be proud of if 
 you can make a prison cheerful : and much of one's life in 
 India is passed, as it were, in prison bounds. 
 
 Of course, the talk is " shoppy ;" but it is the men that make 
 it so. It is always in the power of the ladies to put a gag on 
 it. If there supervenes an awful pause, what of that ? It 
 gives us time for reflection, and teaches us how very foolish 
 most conversations are, seeing that the absence of cabs and 
 barrel organs throws a palsy on them. There is no place for 
 
172 IN THE C. P. 
 
 thinking like India. Tou can think from 6 A. m. to 6 P. M. 
 without anyone fancying that yon are afHicted with syncope. 
 Toil can call it drowsiness, and ask for refreshments when you 
 feel inclined. Tet it is astonishing how small has been 
 the outcome of all the hours of reflection which numberless 
 Anglo- Indians have enjoyed. At most, a few foolish taxes 
 and some botched garments of law. Probably the reason is 
 that at the crisis of creatiye incubation the mind gives way to 
 sleep. 
 
 However stereotyped the conversation, there can be no 
 doubt that our ideas here are anything but conventional. The 
 breadth of sunlight and the sensation of Empire influence our 
 mental habits. We observe all the vices that strike across 
 life's pathway more calmly than they would in Woburn Square ; 
 and we do not make an outcast of the man who plays whist 
 on Sunday. Our respect for the church and for the pro- 
 fessors of medicine is entirely without superstition ; and 
 we sometimes set up a pulpit and a pharmacy of our own. 
 Tile-hats are not deemed necessary to salvation ; and a lady's 
 dress may be as old as her grandmother is, without her losing 
 caste. We get philosophical about diseases ; and take our 
 fevers quietly when they come. 
 
 Certainly, the fevers may be numbered as cross No. 6. 
 They form the worst cross of all, and sometimes cross us out 
 altogether. There is some good, perhaps, to be got from the 
 reflection that we have generally ourselves to blame for catch- 
 ing them ; and that they will effectually drive out of us any 
 foolish irascibility which the recollection of this fact may 
 engender. 
 
 The last cross to be spoken of is the slowness of promotion ; 
 but such a hubbub of ideas and phrases rushes through the 
 mind at the bare naming of this horrid gravamen, that the 
 pen is laid down, and drowsiness is quietly allowed to have its 
 way. 
 
ICED PEO. 173 
 
 ICED PEG. 
 
 Ah, once again I hear 
 That sound to mem'ry dear 
 That voice which crieth clear 
 
 In accents fine. 
 When round the goblet's rim 
 The icy crystals swim 
 And strike the glassy brim 
 
 With ring divine ! 
 
 As sometimes village bells 
 Heard far o'er moorland fells 
 Ring out a chime which tells 
 
 Of joys gone by; 
 When schoolboy's Lenten grief, 
 At Easter found relief, 
 Or, crowned with holly leaf, 
 
 St. Tule drew nigh — 
 
 So now, with toil fordone. 
 Beneath a tropic sun, 
 I seek my leisure won 
 
 With boyish glee ; 
 And hear the tongues of ioe 
 Like bells of Paradise 
 Repeat that Lethe lies 
 
 Iced Peg, in thee ! 
 
174 IN THE C, P. 
 
 A BAZAAR. 
 
 Not a native bazaar : and yet a bazaar for the benefit of 
 natives. More exactly speaking, I sbonld say for the benefit 
 of female natives : or, still more exactly, for native females. 
 A few native females are standing about, education shining 
 in their faces, and Christian plainness in the plaiting of their 
 hair. By simply looking at them, one becomes aware that 
 they have been spiritually nourished on psalms and hymns, 
 and could at any moment raise in chorus the glorious strains 
 of " Gather at the River." 
 
 This is a gratifying result of missionary labours. Truly 
 the man or wom^an whose task it is to take plastic human ma- 
 terial and mould it into the conventional shapes of civi- 
 lization triumphs over the engineer and the horticulturist. 
 Here is no brute, yet cunningly contrived, interaction of inert 
 masses, no ingenious, yet stereotyped, development of vege- 
 table nature ; but a living soul that thinks in prescribed chan- 
 nels, repeats a catechism, and sings touching melodies about 
 time and eternity at the word of command. It is a wonder- 
 ful result. 
 
 To us, standing here in rapt amazement before these pal- 
 pable (nay, embraceable) products of the action of Western 
 energy and conviction upon Oriental limpness and indifference, 
 it is not difficult to yield that encouragement to the mission's 
 work which conies from the purse. But think of the people 
 far away in England and Scotland — the charitable and pious 
 subscribers whose, faith is fed only by reports and photo- 
 graphs — and in pure shame at our own inferior belief, we will 
 rush inside the school-house and buy with zeal whatever the 
 bazaar offers. 
 
 The, eye beholds a glorious vista of babies' frocks, tea-cosies, 
 and antimacassars. One would think that all the babies in 
 
A -BAZAAR. 175 
 
 the station could not get through the frocks at the rate of 
 one each per diem in less than a month. Frocks with blue 
 trimming, red trimming, and black trimming — worked frocks, 
 laced frocks, etched frocks — ^frocks hanging in the air, frocks 
 on tables, frocks under the tables. You cannot walk a step 
 without brushing against a frock, or getting brushed by a 
 frock. It is like a mute appeal on the part of countless borli 
 and unborn babies to your parental kindness, or to your 
 philo-progenitiveness. The tear which rises to your eye is 
 swelled by the thought of the far-away spinsters, and tailors 
 who cut, shaped, hemmed, trimmed, embroidered these little 
 dresses — cut, shaped, hemmed, trimmed, embroidered them 
 without hope of earthly reward, and in pure faith that they 
 would somehow turn to the profit of native females. 
 
 Somehow ! — No, they had a clear notion of the how. They 
 knew that you and I would buy them ; would pay unpropor- 
 tionate prices for things we do not want. It is but just that 
 we should do so ; for we gaze upon the living work of the mis- 
 sion, which for them exists only in reports and photographs. 
 Do we Jiot see the native females with the capacity for hymns 
 in them standing gracefully about ? It is worth a rupee or 
 two extra — ^the sight of this wonderful result. But oh ! far- 
 away toilers and spinsters, you seem to have forgotten that 
 the savage men who dwell in these wilds do not find it neces- 
 sary to go out of doors to smoke. Here are no curtains to be 
 spoiled by tobacco ; and they smoke in happy ease in their 
 dining-rooms. I fear that these prettily-embroidered smoking- 
 caps which lie among the tea-cosies, hiding their modest 
 heads like pansies in a gay parterre, will not be much 
 sought after by smokers. Even as night-caps, they would fail 
 to find a use in this warm country. 
 
 But, after all, what matters it whether they are sought af- 
 ter or not ? One is not here to buy what one wants, but to 
 give a subscription under the veil of a purchase. One must 
 
176 
 
 IN THE C. P. 
 
 not look at tlie affair in a commercial light. Granted that 
 I may carry away a pretty article for my money, can the 
 transaction ever be seriously viewed as satisfactory ? Will 
 not the disproportion between the value and price rise dis- 
 agreeably to my mind whenever I am disposed to admire it ? 
 Will I not marvel at my own folly ? 
 
 Perhaps this is a harsh way of looking at the thing. A 
 person who reasons thus has either forgotten that the margin 
 between value and price is the measure of his donation to the 
 mission, or he remembers this, and thinks his money wasted 
 all the same. If the latter be his unenviable mood, I would 
 suggest a few consolatory reflections. 
 
 I am touched on the shoulder by a fair hand and invited to 
 purchase. Now, unless the soliciting party be his own wife, 
 or a female relative, there is hardly a man who can resist 
 such an invitation. In the character of the temptress, woman 
 has from all ages had an extraordinary success. A bewitch- 
 ing diablerie seems to possess her whenever the possibility of 
 inducing a man to do a silly action is presented to her mind. 
 She espies a double victory — the dethronement of his vaunt- 
 ed superiority to folly, and an act of obedience to her wish. A 
 pretty girl in a bazaar is mistress of misrule, and the gravest 
 heads go ajousting with purses. The gallant captor of a long- 
 priced bit of broidery is rewarded like a victor in the tour- 
 ney — with a smile. 
 
 Are smiles nothing ? When one considers the multipli- 
 city of mental and physical conditions which interlace 
 themselves in a smile, it may be deemed a precious thing. 
 Is the pleasure of approbation nothing — especially when 
 the approbation comes from a source not so intimately re- 
 lated to us that we should disdain it as savouring of self- 
 praise ? Assuredly that margin between value and price 
 which I have mentioned, covers some personal satisfaction 
 which was cheaply bought. , Besides, the victims are many j 
 
THE LILT. 177 
 
 and the sympatliy born of common misfortunes yields innu- 
 merable scintillas of pleasure. Tbe only, real misfortune, 
 after all, is baving to carry away one's purchases. One cuts 
 a sorry figure with a tea-cosy in one hand and two or three anti- 
 macassars in the other. It is like a penance in a game of 
 forfeits, without the gam.e. If it be only the margin between 
 value and price that is bought, why not sell cakes and flow- 
 ers ? There could be no difficulty or absurdity in disposing of 
 them. Why, for instance, should Corisande not sell me that 
 rose she carries in her bosom ? 
 
 I would give quite a fancy price for it. 
 
 THE LILY. 
 
 Roses are fair and rare in their degree, 
 But daintier than the fairest of them all, 
 And holiest of all flowers, is verily 
 The Lily, whom the angels "Alma" call 
 And stoop to kiss it when its smile they find. 
 
 II. 
 The Lily's bloom, with kindly care increast, 
 Pale as the gleam of an autumnal morn 
 Which soothes the fevered exile of the East 
 With thoughts of the cool land where he was born- 
 The holy dawn of childhood brings to mind. 
 
 Ill, 
 What is it that the Lily bids us be ? 
 From every flower that blows a rede we take, 
 If we can read it — " Be ye like to me, 
 Unselfish, modest, glad for others' sake 
 And making simple music to the wind!" 
 
178 IN THE C. P. 
 
 IT. 
 
 Music so soft that only loving ears 
 Can hear it, when the head is bended low — 
 E'en thus, the far faint music of the spheres : 
 Yea, all our finest thoughts are whispered so- 
 And rarely wisdom in loud words we find. 
 
 GOLF. 
 
 This is how it is played at Cobra City,* 21° 9' north latitude. 
 It differs slightly from the game known at St. Andrews. The 
 start is made from a fissured strip of black cotton soil, where 
 great care is necessary in placing the ball lest it disappear in 
 a cranny. Before striking ofi!, the player cries to the fore-cad- 
 dy (a coolie with a flag) , and to all the club-bearing chuprassies 
 in rear — "Look out men !" — for if they do not keep their eyes 
 on the flying sphere, it may never be seen again. There is a 
 brown stubble of dead grass all over the field, and the wily 
 goUf is given to hiding among it. Even if you paint it red, it 
 manages to rub that gleaiaing coat oif soon, and takes a sombre 
 colouring like the dead grass. There is a ditch ahead, which 
 the player must clear. Ten chances to one, he does not clear it. 
 " Porthos" has a theory about these ditches to explain why 
 it is that the ball so often drops into one. The onward side 
 of the ditch being in shadow, and cooler than the level, there 
 is a movement of air along the brink, he says, which arrests 
 the exhausted pila. Observe " Tenorino" striking. It is a 
 most wonderful feat. You have a vision of strained limbs 
 
 * Nagpore ; wliich city takes its name from the Nag (Cobra), a stream very 
 serpentine in its windings — and not, as is by some supposed, from the presence 
 of many snakes. 
 
 + Ball. ■ 
 
ooLF. 179 
 
 " frenetic to be free." Like a loosed Lacoon, lie launches at 
 last Hs stroke with a whiz that makes the air cry out. All eyes 
 search the horizon. Where's the hall ? Suddenly, some one 
 discovers it at " Tenorino's" feet. "Missed, by Jove !" he says ; 
 and his adversaries, " Porthos'' and " Bras-de-fer," smile grim 
 smiles of joy. " Play two more .'" roars " Bras-de-fer." I do not 
 think it is of much use trying to explain what he means by this ; 
 only a person who has played golf can understand the scoring. 
 It is worse than tennis. " Tenorino " refuses to play " two 
 more," and says " Porthos" must play " the like." In the dis- 
 pute that follows, " Odd " and " Like " and " Two more " and 
 " Like as you lie," are the phrases flung about. The fore- 
 caddy sits down and waits. By a desperate act of resolve 
 "Bras-de-fer" at last cries "Pore!" in a terrific tone, and 
 whirls his iron tool. Into the root-meaning of this expression 
 I will not enter. It is probably an abbreviation for " fore- cad- 
 dy ;" and is a direction \o that much-endangered individual 
 to get out of the way. This he does by crouching, as a part- 
 ridge crouches when it sees a hawk over-head. High in air 
 soars the sorely-smitten ball, tracing a beautiful parabola, 
 with an ending like that of the rocket-stick. It drops per- 
 pendicularly into the inevitable ditch, and stops there with a 
 determined " thud." 
 
 The expression on " Bras-de-fer's " face would make a capi- 
 tal picture — " study of a Disgusted Golfer." His position is ri- 
 gid ; like a Pompeian mummy, he is fixed in the attitude of hia 
 latest act. When life and motion return, he ejaculates an 
 esoteric word, whose import I dare not reveal. Seeing the 
 mishap, the partner of the discomfited "Tenorino" ("Papa 
 Beaup^re " by name) chuckles joyously. He begins to 
 sway to and fro, swinging his club as an elephant, waiting 
 for its fodder, swings its trunk. Again and again the club 
 descends, but the ball is not smitten. It is like waiting 
 for the crack of doom. At last the much-meditated stroke is 
 
180 IN THE C. P. 
 
 delivered. Fragments of turf spin aloft, the ball gives a feeble 
 bound forward, and the head of the club flies off with the 
 whirr of a cock-grouse rising. Maledictions and ironic 
 laughter mingle in the air; but " Tenorino " takes heart of 
 grace. With the slogan "Two more !" he sends the ball, like a 
 shot from a catapult, far beyond the ditch. In this ditch behold 
 now the painful " Porthos " removing the small crags and 
 boulders that encircle his fated goU. When he has cleared a 
 pretty ring, he savagely smites. Unfortunately his aim des- 
 cends not on its object, but on an adjoining rock, and the iron 
 tool is shattered in pieces. ". Play the like !" halloos " Ten- 
 orino" from the distance. But " Bras-de-fer " does not play 
 the like. He is a cautious man, and plays differently. He 
 calls for a special kind of instrument, bearing a name which 
 smacks of the Norse Epics — a " Nibling." It resembles a huge 
 cheese-taster. In order to apply it properly, he gets two chup- 
 rassies to support him on the precipitous slope of the ditch. In 
 this position he reminds the spectator of General Wolfe on the 
 heights of Abram, about to " die happy." In sooth, when by 
 a deft and vigorous jerk he sends the ball aloft, his precipitate 
 recoil into the ditch makes it appear that he is really done for. 
 The over-borne chuprassies hastily rise and set him on his legs 
 again. " Porthos " meanwhile has scrambled up the glacis, 
 and is looking everywhere for the ball. 
 
 The rehabilitated General joins him and asks anxiously 
 " Where is it ? " Nobody knows. After half an hour's search 
 the discomfited ones give up the game. A week afterwards 
 the lost ball is recovered, — discoloured, and bloated almost be- 
 yond recognition. It had fallen into a well ! 
 
HOG-STICKING. 181 
 
 HOG-STICKING. 
 
 With horses girthed ready and spear-shafts to hand, 
 In the dusk of a shadowy Peepul we stand ; 
 The flags of our scouts on the watch-trees are high, 
 And in the palm thicket the hoarse beaters cry — 
 " So-ho ! So-ho !" the horn's notes say, 
 "A hog has broke covert and gone away !" 
 
 Each man to the saddle, each hand to the spear ! 
 
 Ride, ride, for the open with speed of the deer ! 
 
 For through the green champaign with wheat rippled o'er, 
 
 There scud the black bristles and sides of a boar ! 
 " So-ho ! So-ho !" the horn's notes say, 
 " The hog is before you, now spear him who may !" 
 
 III. 
 
 Across the stifE nullah and down the steep brae 
 
 The hunters are streaming in gallant array ! 
 
 Our spurring file-leaders their spear-heads advance 
 
 And in the boar's haunches is plunged a sharp lance ! 
 " So-ho ! Sp-ho !" the horn's notes say, 
 " The tusker is wounded and gnashes at bay !" 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then close we our forces, and narrow the ground. 
 Avoid his fierce charges and circle him round, 
 Ride in and strike home — give our spear-shafts a stain 
 Till a thrust in his heart ends the old porker's pain. 
 " So-ho ! So-ho !" the horn's notes say, 
 " The brave hog is dead^ — let us bear him away !" 
 
182 IN THE C. P. 
 
 PROBLEMS OF INDIAN LIFE. 
 
 The field of employment for entrepreneurs is yearly widen- 
 ing. A Wolseley takes a contract for the subjugation of Zulu- 
 land, and we are threatened with a tender from Hyndman for 
 the financial redintegration of India. Why do not Anglo-In- 
 dian stations call in contractors for social fun ? There is no 
 doubt that amusement is an art. How few of us excel in it ! 
 The shadow of officialism lies like a fog-cloud orer mofussil 
 spirits. Occasionally, a gay soldier puffs away the mist with 
 the light-hearted persiflage bom of idle hours ; or a high-spirit- 
 ed lady draws us like moths round the radiance of her raillery. 
 But, mostly, we lounge in disorganized gloom. 
 
 Society is a mob, if it has not leaders. At home, its leaders 
 are leaders of fashion, backed by an army of tailors, dressmak- 
 ers, confectioners, and coach-builders. In this benighted land 
 the camp-followers of fashion are so degraded that its march 
 is anything but gorgeous, and we are indifferent to its state. 
 We gather growlingly round ofB.cialism in verandah-coats. 
 There is, indeed, a leadership of calling and dining, but it is 
 exceedingly triste. Hence it is that the arrival of a Dave Car- 
 son seems a godsend ; and a travelling photographer, skilful in 
 taking groups, is a six days' excitement. Ours is a despotism 
 of dullness tempered by fortnightly dances. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that as so much of human gaiety 
 is dependent upon the pleasures of the table, a reversion to the 
 Spartan Syssitia might do something to ward dissipating our 
 ennui. The whole station might dine together in the Assem- 
 bly Room, the head of each household bringing his own mess 
 {(pnhkni) and those absent at the chase sending a present. 
 The station band would play, and the joke-making man of 
 the company could economise his talents, and please all at once 
 with the same bon-mot. The formal dreariness of private 
 
PROBLEMS OF INDIAN LIFE. 183 
 
 saddle-of-mutton parties would be avoided, and the inanity 
 of "after dinner calls" entirely got rid of. At the same time, 
 that pride which builds itself upon a superior eusine might yet 
 have foothold in the rivalry of messes. What room for grace- 
 ful compliment in the exchange of pottages ! 
 
 This of the Syssitia, however, is a mere mechanical deyice, 
 which would, probably, fail if not under the control of some 
 genial authority. There should, in fact, be a master of the 
 revels to attend to the pleasures of the station. A man with 
 a genius for the r6le is generally to be found upon search ; or, 
 in default of local ability, a salaried impresario might be arrang- 
 ed for. When a " big- wig" comes to visit us, how busy we 
 can all be in devising entertainments ! We appoint committees, 
 and charge this or that individual with the control of parti- 
 cular branches of festal expense. Is not the entertainment of 
 that respectable corporation which we call the " Station" of as 
 great importance as the feasting of a Duke or a Viceroy ? 
 
 When we consider it, how cold and barren are our present de- 
 vices for mutual entertainment ! We ask each other out to 
 dinner, and then live for a fortnight on the credit of our full- 
 dress feed. A dinner party in England has at least a certain 
 distinction in the variety of the entremets and the releves 
 which the French cook or the confectioner supplies : but here 
 in India one's daily fare at home is a shabby imitation of the 
 menu of a petit diner, and the service of an entertainer's table 
 has not even the charm of variety. One grows weary of com- 
 pdt de pigeons, oyster-patties, jZace-chops with a potato-cock 
 in the centre, and roast ducks vis-a-vis with club-mutton. 
 One has seen that sort of thing so often on our private tables ; 
 and yet there are many of us who think that their whole duty 
 to man begins and ends in presenting their compliments, and 
 will he come and eat the same, once a month. In return, he 
 must put on his Sunday costume and call, or be glared at for 
 a heathen. 
 
184 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Que f aire ? One cannot revive the fanciful and costly 
 amusements of Petit Trianon in a poverty-stricken up-coun- 
 try station. Besides, we must not justify a revolution by sur- 
 rendering ourselves to the pursuit of pleasure, in disregard 
 of our mission in this land. So some grave wiseacres would 
 argue. But the disease of melancholy is setting down so fast 
 upon humanity that it becomes a social duty to do something 
 to combat it. Of hard work there is already more than 
 enough : nay, the struggle of existence is in itseM a warrant for 
 recreating gaiety. At the end of each hot season we scan each 
 others' pale faces, and exchange congratulations, like the survi- 
 vors of a battle-field or of a siege. It is not a time, then, for 
 spiritual mortification : there is always a sect of society of the 
 "prunes and prism" sort, who will Aopuja enough for all, and 
 leave the rest to their frolics. Call in the entrepreneur, and let 
 him arrange our parts in the business of diversion : or if he is 
 not to be found, appoint a committee of fun. Let the wags 
 have their comedy, the artists their exhibition, the musicians 
 their concert,, the aesthetics their corwersazione, the athle- 
 tics their arena, the whist-players their club. Above all, let us 
 not forget the Syssitia. 
 
 DEAD. 
 
 Though we pass from mouth to mouth the word that is 
 sadly said. 
 
 Though we noise it north and south or whisper it near with 
 di'ead. 
 
 How shall a man conceive that his friend is dead ? 
 
NAOPORE ELECTRIFIED. 185 
 
 II. 
 
 " Dead" is easily spoken ; but shall he so understand 
 
 That the soul its bonds has broken, as a bird flies from the hand ? 
 
 Or that the spirit has lost its fatherland ? 
 
 III. 
 
 Shall he be glad or sorry' ? If sorry, for what shall he grieve ? 
 For the flight which killed the quarry, or wounds that death 
 
 will leave ? 
 For the stain of self in weeds which grief doth weave ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 All he can learn is this, though he beat on his breast for hours, 
 That a mystic loss is his, that a fruitless wail is ours. 
 That earth has still her smile, whatever sorrow lours ! 
 
 NAGPORB ELECTRIFIED. 
 
 In England we have enough of chimney-stalks. We do not 
 like the look of them, remembering the smoke, grime, and 
 general blighting of natural beauty that hangs about them 
 like a curse. In India, where they are rare objects as yet, 
 the associations are diiierent. The country is generally so, 
 very much blighted already with dust and glare as to be in- 
 capable of taking harm from a chimney. The tall shaft, with 
 its crown of smoke, has power upon our patriotic fancy. As 
 the sight of a church spire rouses many pious memories of 
 rural England, so the familiar elevation of a factory chimney 
 awakens our manufacturing instincts. The true Briton of to- 
 day is what coal has made him : even as his ancestors of Harry 
 the Eighth's time were of the mettle that wood produces, with 
 its forest sports, its tough long-bows, and its ships of oak. If 
 we can only make India into a manufacturing country, we 
 
186 IN THE C. P. 
 
 shall have achieved our destinies. Meantime we do as much 
 as the time allows by digging a coal-mine here, and crying 
 hurrah to a factory there, and hope by the blessing of Heaven 
 to see the glare of the sun somewhat tempered with smoke- 
 fumes before we die. 
 
 To Nagpore folk the whitewashed shaft of their one fac- 
 tory — the " Empress Spinning and Weaving Mills" — is as 
 much a " dear familiar sign" as the pillar of cloud was to the 
 marching Israelities, or as the colunan in Fish Street is to 
 the citizens of that part of London. The trail of smoke from 
 its top shows which way the wind is blowing. The sports- 
 man, far afield, guides his way home by " taking a bee-line" 
 to the chimney. The home-sick di'eamer, who eyes it from 
 beyond the ridge and signal-mast of Seetabuldi,* fancies it 
 to be the funnel of an outward bound steamer lying at the 
 bunder. Thus, each and all find some use or solace in this 
 eccceZsi'or-finger of industry ; and when, not long ago, there was 
 a talk of a rival mill being started, there was a general, 
 though tacit, feeling that the aerial sovereignty of the Em- 
 press's chimney ought not to be divided. 
 
 Occasionally, the people of Nagpore pay a visit to the fac- 
 tory under the impulse given by visitors from Kamptee,t in 
 the same way as the advent of country cousins sometimes 
 pushes Cockneys to the Tower. They are always politely 
 received by the Parsee Manager, and go in among the machi- 
 nery with a confident air, which implies that of course they 
 have seen this sort of thing in England, and only renew their 
 acquaintance for the sake of auld lang syne and Parsee pro- 
 gress. This complacency is apt to be confounded by the per- 
 
 * Seetabuldi liill stands close over tlie Residency (as the building occupied 
 by the Chief Commissioner is still called) in Nagpore. It is fortified ; and 
 ■was the scene of a memorable conflict in 1817 between the English troops and 
 the forces of Apa Sahib. 
 
 + Kamptee is a Military Oautoument, nine miles distant from Nagpore. 
 
NAGPOEE ELECTEII'IED. 187 
 
 vading odour of oil and steaming size, to -whicli is added a 
 certain difficulty of breathing, due to the floating, filmy parti- 
 cles of cotton. The continual noise and motion of the machi- 
 nery, however, distracts the attention from these sensuous 
 details, and permits the mind to lose itself in dreamy attempts 
 to understand what the reels and spindles are driving at. 
 Every bobbin seems to be chattering a different tale, and 
 trying to make itself heard above the blatant din of the 
 shafting and driving-drums overhead. Little boys run to and 
 Jro, and dab their fingers in among the machinery -in a dis- 
 tressful way ; and the shouts of the supervisor sound like the 
 shrieks of some mutilated sufierer on the rack. By-and-by, 
 certain stages in the busy whole are dimly differentiated to 
 the eye : the carding room with its big iron mangles ; the 
 drawing and twisting rooms with their snowy films (fine as 
 the mist which " creeps from pine to pine"), and their revolv- 
 ing mUk-cans filling with creamy cotton-coils ; the spinning 
 room with its army of whirling reels and the solemn come 
 and go of its ironware ; the weaving room with its countless 
 fidgetty arms, which bandy to and fro the flying shuttle ; the 
 sizing room from which the sickening, gluey odour of the steam- 
 ing siise. repels the stranger. These and other steps in the pro- 
 cess of converting cotton into yam and cloth, make a more or 
 less distinct individual impression on his mind. In the main 
 the visitor feels, however, that he is in a weird, uncanny place, 
 where the only thing that is silent is the human tongue ; man's 
 part in the cla,nking, bustling, filmy wilderness being confined 
 to worshipful tendance on a myriad-fingered Frankenstein, 
 with occasional howls to show that he is at it. 
 
 This Frankenstein has, of late, grown more exacting, and 
 demands that his human attendants shall work by night as 
 well as by day. His will is law ; and to enable the workers to 
 see to their tasks, the aid of the magicians of the Rue Drouet 
 was invoked. The fable of Aladdin received a new interpreta- 
 
188 IN THE C. P. 
 
 tion. .Wteii Aladdin rubbed his wonderful lamp a monstrous 
 geni appeared, and brought him the wealth he desired. The 
 turning of a tap on the 2nd April 1881, illumined with a flash 
 the spinning Frankenstein, and revealed him busy at maniifac- 
 turing dividends for the Central India Aladdin. 
 
 It was a great occasion. All the residents of Nagpore 
 came to see. The familiar white chimney-stalk caught the 
 gleam of many oil lamps which decorated the gate of the 
 mills and the houses of the mill-hands, and looked like a 
 pillar of light to serve for a beacon. The great invited rolled 
 to the gate in carriages and cow-carts, forming a processional 
 line resembling that which fills Long Acre when Beverley 
 triumphs at Drury Lane ; and the great uninvited lined the 
 roads, and filled the ditches, and talked of the wonderful flame 
 which came not from shale, cocoanut, or castor-oil. At 
 the entrance, the Managing Director of the mills and the 
 Chief Engineer of the Electric Lighting Company received 
 the guests and led them in. All was in gloom at first ; the 
 big engine " Izad" and his brother working steadily on amid a 
 darkness which the presence of a few feeble oil lamps had 
 little effect apon. A crescent moon saw the party cross the 
 courtyard and enter the portal of the mills. A few moments 
 elapsed, and then with a warning no louder than that which 
 a gaseous coal gives when it breaks into flame on the fire, the 
 light of the moon was suddenly put out. A brighter, minia- 
 ture moon shone full-orbed by the engine-room, making the 
 pulses of the twin Behemoths quicken with exultation. A se- 
 cond moon shining from the corridor invited the loiterer to 
 enter ; and hurryiug through passages yet unlighted, he came 
 to a little chamber like a Captain's cabin, within which two 
 poor little beer-firkins (for such they looked) were being made 
 to revolve at a . terrific speed by the compulsion of a pair 
 of leathern bands, looped down from the shafting overhead. 
 Against the wall of the cabin was a small tap. To this a 
 
JtAGPOEE ELECTEIFIED. 189 
 
 lady's hand, applied a splendid key made of silver and polish- 
 ed stone ; and lo ! with a sound as of a chestnut popping, the 
 unillumined half of the building leapt into light. Everybody 
 Baid " ah-h !" with a tremando of delight in the utterance of 
 it ; and two hundred hot, uplifted faces gazed with uninjured 
 eight upon the ground-glass globes whence the silvery splen- 
 dour issued. Then each began to eye his neighbour and to 
 find him singularly shining — almost as irradiate, perhaps, as 
 Moses was when he came down from the Mount. A 
 feeling of shyness followed ; a kind of -sensation of being seen 
 too much of, and a. craviag for a veil. To remove this tem- 
 porary awkwardness, the Manager organized a " Noah's Ark 
 party ;" and ladies and gentlemen went arm-in-arm round the 
 mills in a gay and smiling procession. The piles of white 
 cotton were softer and fleecier than ever in the clear pale 
 beam, of the artificial moonlight ; the doorways cast romantic 
 shadows ; the myriad- fingered Frankenstein was gay with 
 paper flags and fl'6wers, and seemed to rejoice in his extend- 
 ed mastery. The tour of the works completed, the party 
 were bounteously refreshed with tray-loads of grapes, ices, 
 and champagne, and an ardent photographic artist was allowed 
 to bring his camera to bear upon the couches where the ladies 
 rested. A dozen JablochkofE candles (lanky pencils of white 
 plaster with parallel mouldings of copper-coated charcoal, 
 looking for all the world like sections of willow- wands) were 
 stuck on end on a board, and lighted. There was much com- 
 petition for standing-room behind the couches ; and six na- 
 tive princes and princesses, and an aged Mahratta nobleman, 
 cast themselves down in the foreground. Those who could 
 not get into the field of view stood admiring around, and 
 chaffed their luckier friends into facial sweetness. When 
 his focus was right, the impetuous artist struck a piece of 
 metal violently with a hammer, in order to emphasize that 
 request for steadiness which the rattle of machinery did not 
 
190 IN THE C. P. 
 
 allow him to audibly utter. The request was in the main res- 
 ponded to ; but a little princess in the foreground kept her fan 
 going vigorously, and the Mahratta nobleman was ever enforc- 
 ing stillness with uplifted and wavering finger. It seemed 
 an age before that picture was taken. A Portuguese waiter 
 could not abide it ; and hurried across the scene with a bottle 
 of champagne in his hand, just before the cap of the lens 
 swooped down from its frenzied poise. There was much 
 cheering and congratulation when the agony was over ; and 
 then most of the company went home to dream that they 
 had travelled to Aden and back in the engine room of a 
 steamer, with the moon shining down the hatchway from 
 where it stood nailed to the funnel. 
 
 CAN I FORGET ? 
 
 I. 
 
 Can I forget ? Ah ! no, for yet V 
 
 The fragrance of my love for thee 
 Is like an odorous balsam set 
 
 Within the shrine of memory ! 
 Not left a prey to sharp decay, 
 
 But fair with lilies and lapped in balm, 
 The dead face of a by-gone day 
 
 Lies perfect in enduring calm ! 
 II. 
 Can I forget ? Ah ! no, for yet 
 
 Through sacred aisles my thoughts are led, 
 Again my cheeks with tears are wet 
 
 To hear the Requiem for the dead : — 
 " Cease to deplore : the dream is o'er 
 
 Which thou didst cherish yesternight, 
 And in the tomb of nevermore 
 
 Is laid the day of thy delight !" 
 
SKY EACES. 191 
 
 III. 
 
 Can I forget ? Ah ! no, for yet 
 
 Above the chamber of the shrine 
 With carven flowers a cross is fret 
 
 And briars with ivj intertwine : 
 And in my brain with weary pain 
 
 The print of that cold cross I bear, 
 Whereon the legend runneth plain : — 
 
 " The grave of thy love's hope is there !' 
 
 SKY RACES. 
 
 Why they are called "sky races," I never could make out; 
 but, on mature consideration, I am inclined to believe they have 
 nothiag to do with the Greek word g/cia seeing that they are 
 mostly run in the sunlight. I am of,the opinion that the phrase 
 is elliptical, being< in full, " sky-blue races ;" in reference to 
 the fancyf or .that colour, which is so noticeable a feature in 
 the costumes of the gentlemen-jockeys. Having settled this 
 point, let me pass on at once to the gentlemen-jockeys, and ask 
 the question — ^Why is it that there is so much latent jockeyism 
 in English humanity ? To see English lovers of the sport 
 at these sky races, you would fancy that they had all been born 
 and bred to the profession. There is such an air of knowing- 
 ness and nattiness about them when they don the cap and jac- 
 ket. I suppose good horses make good riders, and England is 
 such a country for horses. Then there is no hitch in the forms 
 and procedure appropriate to the occasion; the clerks of the 
 Course show their favours off in the proper places ; the 
 starters are to the fore with their flags ; the laborious gentle- 
 man at the weighing scales weighs away like the balance-holder 
 in the Egyptian Hades ; the Judge is a Judge, indeed. One 
 would think they had been rehearsing it all for a week before ! 
 
192 IN THE C. P. 
 
 Then, how wonderfully the proper furniture turns up just 
 when it is wanted ! A priori, you would have been sure that 
 no such thing as Sipucca hand-bell, like that one hears rung on 
 English railway-platforms, or which the muffin-man, dear to 
 memory, used to tintinabullate in the streets, could have been 
 found in the wilds of the mofussil, — yet there it is, in the 
 hands of a steward, who will presently get all the noise out of 
 it that its cracked sides are capable of. Here, too, is a wonder- 
 ful machine called a pari mutuel box, with strange slits and 
 slides in it, which must be a highly inconvenient article of 
 furniture for any one to carry about with him, on the chance 
 of a sky race turning up somewhere. Good people there 
 always are who sacrifice themselves for the common weal ; and 
 all I can say is, that I hope the owner of the box will get 
 something out of it when the sporting bachelors, who are 
 popping their wager cards into the slits, have done their part 
 in the business. Observe what is called the grand stand. A 
 nice, airy edifice, with a chhappar* roof to keep the sun off. A 
 fine breeze comes over the race-course in front. On each side 
 of the rails are all the dark m.en, women and children from 
 the neighbouring bazaar. Every tenth family has brought its 
 dog with it. 
 
 The native pohcemen, who are distributed at regular inter- 
 vals along the rails, are uneasily conscious of the presence of 
 these dogs, and of an undignified function which has given to 
 the right hand of each man a long peeled wand. When a our 
 gets on to the course, A on the right side fl.ogs it over to B on 
 the left side, who scarifies it across to G on the right side, and 
 so on, in zig-zags, all down the line. A hilarious recollection 
 of Epsom has roused some British soldiers to the fittingness 
 of converting themselves into Christy Minstrels for the nonce ; 
 and with blackened faces and very prononounced coat-tails, 
 they are making feeble attempts in the traditional line of bones. 
 
 * Thatch of grass. 
 
SKY EACES. 193 
 
 tambourine, and banjo. The families from the bazaar accept 
 their costiime and minstrelsy with considerable pleasure ; but 
 the British soldier in uniform exhibits an amused contempt j 
 for the performance. Away go the ponies to the starting- 
 post. Remark the different styles — airy canter, slap-dash, 
 gallop, easy amble. Now the starters on horse-back, with the 
 flags, have a trying time of it. A certain hard-moiithed pony 
 is perpetually breaking away and spoiling their starts. At the 
 first suspicion of a dip in the flag, he is off down the "course, 
 and does the whole distance beautifully with a capital finish, 
 all by himself, before he can be stopped and brought back. 
 
 Three times in succession he does it ; and thrice the start 
 is proYokingly spoiled. At last, to the relief of everybody, 
 he hies away across country, pursued by the clerks of the 
 Course, and is out of it altogether. There follows the usual 
 vision of coloured caps and' sleeves in mad career, amid the 
 acclamations of the crowd. Between each race the Christy 
 Minstrels have their walk round, the grand stand chatters, 
 the pari mutuel box gathers its solemn cluster, the riders 
 weigh in for the next event. Behold a native jockey, resplend- 
 ent in purple and gold, who has several pounds of handicap- 
 ping weights to stow away in his saddle cloth, and does not 
 exactly know how to stow them. He has brought bits of lead 
 of various sizes and shapes, — round, triangular, oblong, non- 
 descript, — and there are only two pockets to put them in. 
 So he crams them in anyhow, without regard to the distri- 
 bution of weight. By-and-by, a riderless horse careering 
 over the plain tells us that his over-balanced saddle has 
 slipped. We are sorry for the sporting owner ; but every 
 one says " just like a native !" The traditional folly of the 
 Indian exhibits a provoking exception, however, later in the 
 day, when the regimental munshi, mounted on his own 
 " tat," snatches the Lilliput race. Clever old mMms^i .' How 
 he played a waiting game ! How like an Arab of the desert. 
 
194 
 
 IN THE C. P. 
 
 he looked, as lie flashed by the winning post with his white 
 beard floating in the wind ! The regiment are rather proud 
 of him. I am reminded of another important subject of 
 debate which remains to be ventilated — ^what is the nse of a 
 regimental munshi ? Of course, the idea that he teaches any- 
 body in the regiment to which he is attached, anything in 
 particular, is long ago exploded. As to teaching Hindustani, 
 that is unnecessary : English is a much more convenient 
 tongue to know in this country. It can't be that he teaches 
 English Grammar. Upon the whole, I incline to the belief 
 that he is maintained on account of his cleverness in buying 
 serviceable ponies, and in sometimes winning a " sky race" or 
 two for the honour of the regiment. Peace be to his beard ! 
 
 RHYMES' REWARD. 
 
 I. 
 
 In the golden Indian clime. 
 
 Whose gold is in the air. 
 
 And the stars have a silver chime 
 
 (There is little silver elsewhere !) 
 
 In a happy, or hapless, morning of time, 
 
 I plucked me a posy of common Rhyme. 
 
 II. 
 
 I tossed it abroad on the air ! 
 It floxmced on the ears of many — 
 Made an enemy here and there, 
 And did not earn me a penny ! 
 But something it won which was worth the care- 
 Something not found, friend, everywhere ! 
 
WITH THE NAGPOBE HUNT. 195 
 
 III. 
 
 It won me a kindly thought, 
 
 Born in a bosom fair ; 
 
 Flashed by the eyes love sought, 
 
 With a worship tender and rare ! 
 
 And the end of it is that in joyous sport 
 
 I pipe far more than a plain man ought I 
 
 IV. 
 
 Can I not rest content 
 
 With her sunny favour won ? 
 
 Shall I follow a blind man's bent 
 
 And play old tunes in the sun ? 
 
 Fie ! What a skirl from the chanter went ! 
 
 I must stop friend, now, for my breath is spent. 
 
 WITH THE NAGPORE HUNT. 
 
 The Deputy Commissioner of the Wardha district has a 
 two-fold interest in Sind-hans. These long, narrow strips of 
 jungle, which intersect the cultivation of the southern por- 
 tion of the district, take their name from the toddy palms of 
 which they are mainly composed. The right to tap the toddy- 
 trees for the festive juice which they afford has been matter 
 for hot controversy between him and the Malguzars : and the 
 whacking of the toddy-bushes with the sticks of beaters, in 
 order to turn out the lusty boars who lurk in the shade of 
 them, is matter for hearty arrangement with the Nagpore 
 Hunt. 
 
 No one who stops at the Wardha Railway Station would 
 think, from the look of the neighbourhood, that there was any 
 fun to be g6t out of it anyhow. Everything looks yellow, and 
 
196 IN THE C. P, 
 
 bare, and dusty. A couple of straight-backed ridges, with 
 only a single tree on the top of one of them, are so sugges- 
 tive of fire-plates at the back of a stove, that the monotonous 
 level of the plain would be almost better without them. It is 
 hard to understand how the seedy Serai,* the gaunt Cotton 
 Press, and the melancholy Dak Bungalow with its niggardly 
 hedge, came to get themselves into so desperate a situ- 
 ation. The meagre saplings, which the Deputy Commissioner 
 calls an " avenue" in his annnal report, seem to grieve over 
 the consciousness that each has only a few cubic feet of 
 mould dropped in an excavation in the rocky soU, within which 
 their roots may ball and twine. Their querulous leaves seem 
 to repeat to the dry wind the sad story of how Wardha was 
 founded. " I will not budge another yard," said the stoutest 
 and hottest member of the prospecting committee who were 
 sent out to look for a site. The rest took pity on him ; and 
 from the spot where he sat down exhausted, they laid out the 
 lines of the station. 
 
 Wardha, however, has a great future in store. It is already 
 a junction. It may be described as the Mugby janction of the 
 Central Provinces. There is a refreshment room, where you 
 can get a fair notion of how the local goats and fowls thrive 
 in the arid solitudes. A polite Parsee formerly assisted diges- 
 tion by his urbanity and his amusing want of faith in ma- 
 chine-made ice ; but he failed to supply a railway-officer with 
 the proper quantity of Wenham, and now a representative of 
 Goa reigns in his stead. 
 
 The great Wardha Coal State Railway runs from this place 
 to Warora, passing through the cotton mart of Hinganghat. 
 The colliery of Warora is really in the Chanda district ; but 
 that is a picturesque detail which cannot afEect the scientific 
 principles of railway nomenclature. The coal is regarded as 
 a naturalized subject of Wardha, for it is stacked at Wardha 
 
 * Native rest-house. 
 
WITH THE NAGPOEE HUNT. 197 
 
 station for delivery to the G. I. P. The line passes through a 
 slightly undulating plain, covered with cotton and jowar crops, 
 which improve in description as the train goes farther south. 
 Now and again, a black buck withhis following of does may 
 be seen bounding away through the jowarry. Engineers have 
 made him timid. Venatio viam parat should be their motto. 
 In this country railway construction and maintenance go hand- 
 in-hand with sport. The youthful Engineer on his trolly, with 
 coolies behind him (nimble as tight-rope walkers on the polish- 
 ed rails), and his rifle and dog beside him, is a familiar sight. 
 The prospect of black buck gives a zest to inspection of per- 
 manent ways which the performance of this duty lacks at 
 home. The love of chase spreads to the station-masters and 
 engine-drivers. Drivers have been known to pull up the 
 " Mixed" in order that they might alight and do a little deer- 
 stalking. Strange-looking hounds — 
 
 Veloces Spartae catulos, acremque Molossum, 
 are to be seen baskiag at the doors of some Way Inspectors' 
 houses. At the station of Soniganw on this Hinganghat line, 
 there is a rifle-range, the firing point of which is in the centre 
 of the platform, the target being a painted stone upon a crag 
 of bare trap-rock which rises opposite. Why a station was 
 made at Soniganw, it is difficult to say. No one ever seems 
 to get in or to get out there. Tet the architects were san- 
 guine that their building would have to be enlarged, and left 
 big binding-stones sticking out at the ends, with a stout ca- 
 ble and chain drooping across them. It looks, for all the 
 world, like a lacustrine pier-head left dry by seismic upheaval. 
 A truck-load of goods in the year is all the business Soniganw 
 does at present ; but, like Wardha, it may have a future before 
 it. For the Nagpore Hunt .it is a very useful institution. 
 Three miles away from here are the Sind-bans of Goji. At 
 Goji are yearly pitched the tents of the Hunt in its holiday 
 march through the district. 
 
198 IN THE C. P. 
 
 It is ten o'clock in tlie forenoon. Lots have been drawn, and 
 five horsemen go to the left of the ban and five to the right. 
 The 6a» is a long strip of dense undergroTrth with a narrow and 
 tortuous nullah running down the middle, and the feathery tops 
 of toddy-palms rising everywhere above. The village band 
 is marching through, with diabolic din. The drum executes 
 a monotonous one-two-three like a trois-temps teacher counting 
 tiiiLe ; and the bag-pipe pays no attention to the bars, but tells 
 through its nose a doleful tale about the pig which died last 
 year. The savage music seems, however, to give the beaters 
 heart. They " keep touch " as well as they can through the 
 jungle, and lay on jollily with their sticks. The lazier sort 
 merely skirt the thicket, following each other in Indian file. 
 Janu, the huntsman, rides at them occasionally and drives 
 them in ; whereon, after the manner of natives, they begin to 
 gird at their fellows, and the cry of " Bolo, bolo !" goes hotly 
 up to heaven. Suddenly there is a great and tumultuous 
 shouting, followed by a dead pause. Bag-pipe and tabor break 
 sharply off, and all that is heard is a long-drawn Ah-h ! — 
 like the murmur of a crowd when a rocket shoots sky- 
 wards. The red and white flags of the signallers posted on 
 the tops of the outlying tamarind trees are seen to be 
 waving violently. From the way the flags droop, it is known 
 that a boar has broken cover on the other side of the han. 
 " Just like our luck !" we mutter and sit ruefully in the sad- 
 dle. The sun is hot : and the man with the water chagul 
 has a busy time. The skin is all pealing ofE the nose of Nar- 
 cis, and Porthos perspires silently. He gazes sadly over the 
 wide, green fields of rising wheat, diversified by lakes and 
 inlets of azure linseed-bloom to a shady grove of mangoes, 
 where a cloth is spread, and wishes it was luncheon-time. 
 Presently, voices are heard from the other side of the han ; 
 and we know that the riders have returned from their run. 
 "He has broken back — a big grey boar!" is the shout. 
 
WITH THE NAOPOEE HUNT. 199 
 
 " Bang-wang-wang ! goes the drum and tootle-de-tootle the 
 fife," and the beat jogs merrily forward once more. After 
 a quarter of an hour of patient work the end of the han is 
 nearly reached. Suddenly out jumps the duhar* with a hide- 
 ous grunt, and making straight for the horse of Narcis, passes 
 under its forelegs as the animal rears and wheels about. 
 With loud halloos the chase is taken up, both parties of horse- 
 men meeting at the tail of the han. Thel-e is fine " going" 
 across the wheat, linseed, and jowarry stubble. The boar bears 
 away to the right, and the first rider is last, and the last first. 
 Closely pressed by the two foremost " spears," he goes for a 
 neighbouring village, crossing a blind ditch, which breaks the 
 stirrup leather and spoils the seat of one of them. The other 
 has hopes of piercing his hide, when, in desperation, the pig 
 wheels round and charges his pursuers. He meets Poins, 
 Toric, and Porthos in full career. He just grazes the forelegs 
 of Poins' horse, receiving a spear as he passes ; and then, with 
 one colossal shock, he overthrows Toric's chestnut, and is 
 himself overthrown by the violence of the collision. Toric 
 pitches on to his head, and the horse rolls over him. Porthos 
 cannot rein in his steed, and is carried past the mSlee. The 
 boar regains his legs in a trice, and disappears in some long 
 grass. Toric remains face downwards in the stubble, senseless 
 and still. 
 
 The chase is over for a while. An astonished native is 
 shaken out of his maohan-f by an energetic jager, and made to 
 fetch some water and a charpoy. Toric revives a Uttle with 
 the water, and is carried to a heap of chaff on an adjoining 
 threshing-floor. All the hunters gather around. Narcis takes 
 the opportunity of shading his face by, sitting down behind a 
 pile of tur stalks. A squeal from the infant abandoned by 
 'its father at the top of the maohan suggests to the energetic 
 
 * Mahratti for Boar. 
 
 + A rude platform for the Hrd-soarers who watch the crops when ripening. 
 
200 IN THE C. P. 
 
 jager tlie means of transporting Toric to the tents. Tlie 
 child is tumbled down someliow, and deposited on the heap of 
 pulse-stalks. Catching sight of the nose of Narcis, it flies in 
 tears to its mother. The wooden ladder of the machan is torn 
 away, and to one of the poles of it is slung the charpoy. On 
 this rude litter poor Toric is placed and carried to the 
 camp. 
 
 The Hunt soothes its harassed temper with luncheon. 
 Porthos is made happy with a mince-pie, and is sorry when it 
 is time to mount again. The beat is resumed. Again a boar 
 breaks. This time the animal contents itself with playing a 
 game of hide-and-seek among the prickly bushes which stud 
 the immediate neighbourhood of the han. In one of its 
 " jinks " it runs under the belly of a led pony and gets kicked 
 for its audacity. The antics of the astonished syce attract 
 the seekers, and the pig is pressed to the open. A skilful rider 
 keeps on its flank, and when the hog bears upon him in des- 
 pair, receives it so fairly on the point of the spear that the 
 weapon sticks fast. Thus encumbered, the boar cannot go 
 much further, and a careful thrust from Poins despatches him. 
 He is carted to the tents ; and the weary hunters follow. 
 
FAEEWELIi. 201 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Faeewell ! " — when the word is spoken, 
 
 Does the loved Past utterly go — 
 Is the chain of our sympathy broken 
 
 And sundered for evermoe ? 
 Is there nought in our hearts abiding 
 
 When the claspt hands loosen and fall — 
 Do affection and joy in confiding 
 
 Expire at the road-bell's call ? — 
 Ah, no ! — ^for no joy dies wholly, 
 
 But blossoms again and again ; 
 And the light of a love that was holy 
 
 Will never fade out of the brain ! 
 
 Though I never again shall behold thee, 
 
 The charm of thy spirit is mine ; 
 Though thou never again shalt behold me. 
 
 The flower of my reverence is thine ! 
 Though I lose thy loved image or token. 
 
 My heart keeps a record of thee ; 
 Though the gift that I gave thee be broken, 
 
 Its sacred shrine never can be ! — 
 Thus, with grief when we balance joy's earnings, 
 
 The lightness of parting is plain — 
 Yet the frail human heart has its yearnings — 
 
 Ood grant I may meet thee again ! ^^.