_Contains the History of the Bhumia of Jharwasa, and the Record of a Visit to the House of Strange Stories. Demonstrates the Felicity of Loaferdom, which is the veritable Companionship of the Indian Empire, and proposes a Scheme for the better Officering of two Departments._ Come away from the monstrous gloom of Chitor and escape northwards. The place is unclean and terrifying. Let us catch To-day by both hands and return to the Station-master--who is also booking-parcels and telegraph-clerk, and who never seems to go to bed--and to the comfortably wadded bunks of the Rajputana-Malwa line. While the train is running, be pleased to listen to the perfectly true story of the _bhumia_ of Jharwasa, which is a story the sequel whereof has yet to be written. Once upon a time, a Rajput landholder, a _bhumia_, and a Mahomedan _jaghirdar_, were next-door neighbours in Ajmir territory. They hated each other thoroughly for many reasons, all connected with land; and the _jaghirdar_ was the bigger man of the two. In those days, it was the law that victims of robbery or dacoity should be reimbursed by the owner of the lands on which the affair had taken place. The ordinance is now swept away as impracticable. There was a highway robbery on the _bhumia’s_ holding; and he vowed that it had been “put up” by the Mahomedan who, he said, was an Ahab. The reive-gelt payable nearly ruined the Rajput, and he, labouring under a galling grievance or a groundless suspicion, fired the _jaghirdar’s_ crops, was detected and brought up before the English Judge who gave him four years’ imprisonment. To the sentence was appended a recommendation that, on release, the Rajput should be put on heavy securities for good behaviour. “Otherwise,” wrote the Judge, who seems to have known the people he was dealing with, “he will certainly kill the _jaghirdar_.” Four years passed, and the _jaghirdar_ obtained wealth and consideration, and was made, let us say, a Khan Bahadur, and an Honorary Magistrate; but the _bhumia_ remained in gaol and thought over the highway robbery. When the day of release came, a new Judge hunted up his predecessor’s finding and recommendation, and would have put the _bhumia_ on security. “Sahib,” said the _bhumia_, “I have no people. I have been in gaol. What am I now? And who will find security for me? If you will send me back to gaol again I can do nothing, and I have no friends.” So they released him, and he went away into an outlying village and borrowed a sword from one house, and had it sharpened in another, for love. Two days later fell the birthday of the Khan Bahadur and the Honorary Magistrate, and his friends and servants and dependants made a little durbar and did him honour after the native custom. The _bhumia_ also attended the levee, but no one knew him, and he was stopped at the door of the courtyard by the servant. “Say that the _bhumia_ of Jharwasa has come to pay his salaams,” said he. They let him