himself to notice by his daring attacks on the pirates who infested the coast, and had been selected to command the Gaekwar's war vessels employed against them. There was no ascertained connection between the pirates and outlaws, but Captain Grant's office made him a tempting person for the latter to seize, and to hold as a lever to work on the local authorities, and, indeed, they succeeded in their object.

Captain Grant's memoir so well illustrates the anarchy and misrule prevailing in Kattywar, and the peculiar usage which I have described, that I give it entire at the end of this chapter. Bahar-wuttia, I am sorry to say, is not yet thoroughly extirpated, though, happily, not carried on with the savagery of former days. Recent reforms, while greatly diminishing the labours of the British Agency, and increasing its power, have, in fact, tended to give an impetus to the practice, by narrowing, if not closing, the safety-valve formerly open, of appeal to the Agency in cases of violence or fraud, calculated otherwise to drive the subordinate landholder to his old method of ob

taining redress. Surely, if we lend our power to the chiefs to put down rebellion, we ought at least to see that they do not force their subjects into it.

When Captain Grant was carried off, the whole Peninsula was more or less controlled by the Gaekwar, whose Viceroy there, was accompanied by an English officer, assistant of the Resident of Baroda. The Viceroy's duty was to levy both his master's and the Peshwa's share of tribute, and to maintain peace. I need scarcely say that the enlargement of the Gaekwar's possessions in the Province was by no means omitted. When the British Government succeeded by conquest to the whole of the Peshwa's dominions, Captain Barnwell was appointed its first Political Agent, shortly after Captain Grant's release. A double rule was speedily done away with, by arrangements with the Baroda Court, and from this period Kattywar has slowly emerged from the condition of which Captain Grant was a

victim.

I return from this digression to the Political

Agent's court, certainly not introduced too soon into the country. The trials held before it brought to light the usages and superstitions of the people, and I regret that extreme pressure of official

1

occupation prevented my preserving notes of some of the most remarkable. They led to the suppression of barbarous methods of administering so-called justice, such as the ordeal of boiling oil, or of red-hot iron, employed as tests of innocence or of guilt.

On one occasion I had to try the uncle of the Palitana Chief, who had gone out into bahar-wuttia in consequence of the encroachments on his land by his nephew. I asked the old man why he had not come to the Agency to complain, instead of taking the law into his own hands. 'It's not my fault,' he replied; 'I made the attempt three times,

1 The duties often devolving on one man in India would scarcely be credited in this country. In Kattywar they combined every administrative function over an area of some twenty thousand square miles, with a population of about two millions.

During the time I held charge, A.D. 1839 to 1843, I had rarely more than one Assistant, sometimes none. The local Government has of late become sensible of there being little wisdom in expecting large results from small means, and has given the Agent half-a-dozen regular Assistants, besides numerous officers for special duties.

and was always stopped by bad omens.

The first time an antelope crossed in front of me the wrong way just after setting out, and, of course, I had to go back; the second attempt I got no omen, till a hare started on my left; the third time, a flight of crows came and perched on a tree on my left, cawing loudly. After such warnings it was folly to try again, so I was obliged to see what I could do for myself, according to the custom of my country.'

Belief in magic is so profound throughout India as to make truth doubly difficult of attainment. In a case of disputed succession that came before me, the symptoms which gave promise of an heir were credited to enchantment, which certain incantations, recited to the sound of a tom-tom in presence of the lady, would infallibly demonstrate; and, on like grounds, a claim to be the lawful heir nearly two years after the death of the husband, has been advanced, and met with support, on the ground that magic, employed by the opposite party, had stayed the birth. There is, indeed, no placing bounds to the credulity of the

Oriental mind not trained in habits of thought, and simple conversion to Christianity, without such training, makes little, if any, difference. I have been petitioned by a Christian woman, in virtue of my magisterial authority, to compel another to undo a spell cast on her. The miracles of the Gospel are as nothing to a Hindoo. One of their holy men drank up the ocean-what then need be said of the feats of their gods! Miracles are everywhere believed to be worked at the present day. The whole land appears to its inhabitants to be peopled by spirits of diverse orders. The village deities, when required, predict events in various ways; a common method is to attach a grain of rice to the eyebrows or breasts of the idol, if the right one adheres longest the omen is propitious, and vice versa; or some devotee works himself into a frenzy before the shrine, in which condition his utterances are held to be those of the god. To recount all the superstitions prevalent would fill a volume. Though varying in different provinces, a general family likeness runs through all of Hindoo descent; many of these also prevail