mouth of a hive, but most standing on the wall and letting down their leather buckets into the water. As they begin to haul these up again hand over hand, you will look to see them all topple head foremost into the well, but they do not as a rule. It makes an imaginative European giddy to look down into that Tartarean depth; but then the _Bheestee_ is not imaginative. As the hot season advances, the water retreats further and further into the bowels of the earth, and the labour of filling the _mussuk_ becomes more and more arduous. At the same time, the demand for water increases, for man is thirsty and the ground parched. So the toils of the poor _Bheestee_ march _pari passu_ with the tyranny of the climate, and he grows thin and very black. Then, with the rain, his vacation begins. Happy man if his master does not cut his pay down on the ground that he has little to do. We masters sometimes do that kind of thing. I believe the _mussuk_ bearer is the true and original _Bheestee_, but in many places, as wealth and luxury have spread, he has emancipated his own back and laid his burden on the patient bullock, which walks sagaciously before him, and stops at the word of command beside each flower-pot or bush. He treats his slave kindly, hanging little bells and _cowries_ about its neck. If it is refractory he does not beat it, but gently reviles its female ancestors. I like the _Bheestee_ and respect him. As a man, he is temperate and contented, eating _bajree_ bread and slacking his thirst with his own element. The author of Hobson Jobson says he never saw a drunken _Bheestee_. And as a servant he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work, seeking it out rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware, standing in a bucket of water, which it was his duty to fill daily; but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the plug out of the filter and filled it too! And all the station knows how assiduously he fills the rain gauge. But what I like best in him is his love of nature. He keeps a tame lark in a very small cage, covered with dark cloth that it may sing, and early in the morning you will find him in the fields, catching grasshoppers for his little pet. I am speaking of a Mahomedan _Bheestee_. You must not expect love of nature in a Hindoo. [Picture: His little pet] TOM, THE BARBER.