The Minister of the State, a worthy old man, and devout Brahmin, was not answerable for the wild doings of others, and I used to invite him with a few more to sit with me on the magisterial bench, consulting them from time to time, and attending to their opinions at discretion. These all expressed more or less alarm on learning my intention to withhold the demon's grant. It might draw his vengeance down on the fort, they said. I silenced, if not convinced them, by asking them to reflect whether the Company's government had not proved itself stronger than all the demons of the land put together. That I, as representative of the British power, now faced the gateway, and it was insulting to me to suppose that I could not take better care of the fort than the hobgoblins, all of whom I defied, and in whose existence I disbelieved. 'Depend upon it,' I continued, 'if mischief follow, I will trace the human agent, and make him answer for it.'

As the circumstances of the time had called forth striking exhibitions of corrective power, no one liked to bell the cat, so the mice remained in their

holes, and the spirit world of Sawunt Waree acknowledged British supremacy.

I

Advantage may at times be taken of the superstitions of the people for their benefit. I was one day riding across country in Kattywar, when I observed a man continually throwing stones to his right and left as he followed the pathway. fancied him a maniac, but rode up, and enquired what he was doing? 'An act of religion' (dhurm), he replied. How so?' I asked. 'Don't you see,' he answered, 'how these sharp stones gall the bullocks, and injure their hoofs as they tread the path with their loads? I am on a pilgrimage to Dwarka, and before setting out made a vow to clear off these stones the whole of the way.'

Macadamised roads were then unknown save at our own stations. Those throughout the provinces were what nature and the wear and tear of transit made them.

Many years afterwards, when Political Agent in Kutch, I was anxious to obtain a more direct road from the capital to its chief seaport than the one then existing, which was nothing better than a

beaten track over a steep and difficult Ghat.' The Rao being a conservative of the stare super antiquas vias type, was hard to move towards any new thing. I expatiated on the saving of some miles in distance, and therefore of time, labour, and cost of transport, &c., but all in vain, until I bethought me of telling him the anecdote above related. 'Scores of bullocks are annually destroyed and lamed on the present Ghat road,' I wound up with, ' will your Highness allow yourself to be outdone by that poor pilgrim?' The argument was conclusive, the road was ordered, money for it set apart, and it was opened, though not completed, when I left in the close of 1856, Captain Raikes and Captain Shortt rendering effective aid through

out.

Another road-making anecdote will illustrate native feeling unchanged by contact with European civilisation. Sawunt Waree having proved a hotbed of disturbance, Mr. Richard Spooner was in 1838 appointed to control it. One of the first things he wisely did was to make a good road to

Hill or mountain pass.

connect its capital with the seaport Vingorla. At this time Major Troward was charged with the duty of forming a disciplined body out of the armed retainers of the state, and was on friendly terms with the Raja, whose power had been superseded. One day, in confidential mood, the latter remarked to him, 'See how this Sahib is spoiling my country by his new road, and what he calls improvements!' I ought perhaps to add, as some excuse for the Raja, that the traditionary policy of the state was to maintain inaccessibility. Forests, difficult passes, vile roads, thick jungles, were the bulwarks not only of the capital, but of most of its towns and villages.

With such ignorance prevailing, the path of justice is indeed beset with thorns, and the people easily swindled and deluded. For instance, soon after I had assumed charge of this State, an impostor went about the country levying a war cess in my name; his credentials an empty gooseberry bottle of Crosse and Blackwell, the Royal arms in gilt letters on its label, and a paper of sham English writing, headed by a supposed official seal

that was merely the impression made by the bung of a mustard jar. Yet these precious credentials had sufficed for several villages, till he was unwise enough to venture where he met with a functionary sufficiently acute to deal with him. When on his trial, all the foregoing was fully proved. The liability of the people to be defrauded by the subordinates of Government is a cogent reason against the imposition of new taxes. Our imperfect and tedious system of redress, often aggravating rather than compensating wrong, renders it imperative on Government, as much as possible, to abstain from such, however sound in theory. And this leads me to speak of the working of our courts, little understood by Englishmen, who imagine law a panacea for every evil.

Our system is unsuited to the Oriental mind, except where imbued with Western ideas, as in the Presidency towns, though even here it is no safeguard for the poorer classes. Throughout the interior the masses dread our courts and their processes, and many a wrong is endured rather than seek redress through them. We have, alas! to