What memories rise out of their graves at the mention of old Ragunath! Just about a quarter of an hour after his time he comes slowly up the steps, panting for breath, and leaving his shoes at the door, walks in with a _quasi_ courtly salutation. As soon as he can recover his voice, he tells of a hair-breadth escape from sudden death. As he was crossing the road, a carriage and pair bore down on him. He stood petrified with terror, not knowing whether to hurry forward or turn back, but just as the horses were upon him, he made a frantic effort and gained the side-walk! He infers that his time to die had not arrived, and takes the occasion to impart some information about the planets and their influence on human destinies. Then we seat ourselves, and he takes my exercise (translation from Grant Duff), and reads it slowly in a muffled voice, which is forced to make its exit by the nose, the mouth being occupied with cardamoms or betel nut. As he reads he corrects with a pencil, but gives no explanation of his corrections; for you must not expect him to teach: he is a mine simply, in which you must dig for what you want. One thing you may depend on, that whatever you extract from that mine will be worth having, indigenous treasure, current wherever Hindoo thought is moving, very different from the foreign-flavoured pabulum with which your English smattering instructor charges his feeding bottle. The exercise gives Ragunath an opportunity of digressing into some traditional incident of Maratha history which escaped the researches of Mr. Grant Duff, an incident generally in which Maratha cunning (_sagacity_ he calls it) triumphed over English stupidity. After the exercise comes the inevitable petition. I do not remember the subject of it—some grievance no doubt connected with hereditary rights in land—but it matters little; the whole document might as well be a Moabite stone recording the wars of Mesha with Jehoram, for not a letter of it stands out recognisable to my eyes. Indeed, no letter, or word either, stands out at all; the scribe seems never to have lifted his pen from his paper except for ink, and that generally in the middle of a word. However, Ragunath takes the greasy paper from my hand, remarks that the handwriting is good, and starts off reading it, or, I should say, intoning it, on exactly the same principle, _viz._, never pausing except for breath, and that generally in the middle of a word. Then we read together the “Garland of Pearls,” which he illuminates with notes of his own. Speaking of old age, he remarks that the hair of some men ripens sooner than that of others, but that our heads must all grow grey as our brains get thin. He discourses on anatomy, food, digestion, the advisability of lying down on the left side for twenty minutes after meals, and on many things in heaven and earth which are not dreamed of in our philosophy. As the morning wears