scheme which should put money into a tottering Treasury, or lighten the taxation of a few hundred thousand men--or both; for this can be done. One tithe of that force spent on their own advancement would have carried such men very far. Those who know anything of the internals of government, know that such men must exist, for their works are written between the lines of the Administration Reports; but to hear about them and to have them pointed out, is quite a different thing. It breeds respect and a sense of shame and frivolity in the mind of the mere looker-on, which may be good for the soul. Truly the Hat-marked Caste are a strange people. They are so few and so lonely and so strong. They can sit down in one place for years, and see the works of their hands and the promptings of their brain, grow to actual and beneficent life, bringing good to thousands. Less fettered than the direct servant of the Indian Government, and working over a much vaster charge, they seem a bigger and a more large-minded breed. And that is saying a good deal. But let the others, the little people bound down and supervised, and strictly limited and income-taxed, always remember that the Hat-marked are very badly off for shops. If they want a necktie they must get it up from Bombay, and in the rains they can hardly move about; and they have no amusements and must go a day’s railway journey for a rubber, and their drinking water is doubtful; and there is rather less than one lady _per_ ten thousand square miles. After all, comparative civilisation has its advantages. XIV. _Among the Houyhnhnmns._