The Maharaja of Bithoor exhibited a lively interest in the proceedings of our Government at home and abroad, in our history, our arts, our religion, and our customs; although he was entirely ignorant of our language. He subscribed to all the leading Anglo-Indian journals, which were translated to him daily by an individual who had been unlucky enough to exchange a situation on the East Indian Railroad for the post of English Professor in the household of the Nana. The Rajah played billiards admirably, while he was yet slim enough to bend over the table without inconvenience. He especially delighted in the game, because it afforded him an opportunity for mixing on familiar terms with the officers of the garrison. Nothing could exceed the cordiality which he constantly displayed in his intercourse with our countrymen. The persons in authority placed an implicit confidence in his friendliness and good faith, and the ensigns emphatically pronounced him a capital fellow. He had a nod or a kind word for every Sahib in the station. There were hunting-parties and jewellery for the men, and picnics and shawls for the ladies. If a subaltern's wife required change of air, the Rajah's carriage was at the service of the young couple, and the European apartments at Bithoor were put in order to receive them. If a civilian had overworked himself in court, he had but to speak the word, and the Rajah's elephants were sent on to the Oude jungles. But none the less did he never for an instant forget the grudge which he bore our nation. While his face was all smiles, in his heart of hearts he brooded over the judgment of the Company, and the wrong of his despised claim. From his hour of repulse to his hour of vengeance his life was one long irony. Thenceforward his story would more fitly be told in the wild and mysterious rhythms of the old Greek drama than in sober English prose; for in truth that story finds no parallel, save in the ghastly tales which hang like a mist of blood round the accursed house of Pelops. The lads who, with his sapphires and rubies glistening on their fingers, sat laughing round his Thyestean table, had one and all been doomed to die by a warrant that admitted of no appeal. He had sworn that the injustice should be expiated by the blood of women who had never heard his grievance named;--of babies who had been born years after the question of that grievance had passed into oblivion. The great crime of Cawnpore blackens the page of history with a far deeper stain than Sicilian Vespers, or September massacres: for this atrocious act was prompted, not by diseased and mistaken patriotism, nor by the madness of superstition, nor yet by incontrollable fear that knew not pity. The motives of the deed were as mean as the execution was cowardly and treacherous. Among the subordinate villains there might be some who were possessed by bigotry and class-hatred: but the chief of the gang