=Benefactions to Nāthdwāra.=—The dead stock of Krishna’s shrine is augmented chiefly by those who hold life “unstable as the dew-drop on the lotus”; and who are happy to barter “the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind” for the intercessional prayers of the high priest, and his passport to Haripur, the heaven of Hari. From the banks of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the coasts of the Peninsula to the shores of the Red Sea, the gifts of gratitude or of fear are lavishly poured in; and though the unsettled aspect of the last half-century curtailed the transmission of the more bulky but least valuable benefactions, it less affected the bills of exchange from the successful sons of commerce, or the legacies of the dead. The safe arrival of a galleon from Sofala or Arabia produced as much to the shrine as to the insurance office, for Kanhaiya is the Saint Nicholas of the Hindu navigator, as was Apollo to the Grecian and Celtic sailors, who purchased the charmed arrows of the god to calm the troubled sea.[4.19.62] A storm accordingly yields in proportion to its violence, or to the nerve of the owner of the vessel. The appearance of a long-denied heir might deprive him of half his patrimony, and force him to lament his parent’s distrust in natural causes; while the accidental mistake of touching forbidden food on particular fasts requires expiation, not by flagellation or seclusion, but by the penance of the purse. There is no donation too great or too trifling for the acceptance of Krishna, from the baronial estate to a patch of meadowland; from the gemmed coronet to adorn his image, to the widow’s mite; nor, as before observed, is there a principality [526] in India which does not diminish its fisc to add to his revenues. What effect the milder rites of the shepherd-god have produced on the adorers of Siva we know not, but assuredly Eklinga, the tutelary divinity of Mewar, has to complain of being defrauded of half his dues since Kanhaiya transferred his abode from the Yamuna to the Banas; for the revenues assigned to Kanhaiya, who under the epithet of ‘Yellow mantle’[4.19.63] has a distinguished niche in the domestic chapel of the Rana, far exceed those of the Avenger. The grants or patents of Hindupati,[4.19.64] defining the privileges and immunities of the shrine, are curious documents.[4.19.65]