find a tiger, and it was our fault if it was not killed. The Rajah was a large landholder, and the visitors at his house had a most favourable opportunity of seeing how he managed his property and conducted his affairs with his tenants and his neighbours. The people flocked in daily in considerable numbers to attend the Rajah’s office, and if they had leisure they would come and have a good stare at the English visitors. The principal part of the office-work was carried on by the Rajah’s native ministerial officers of various grades and titles; but he almost invariably took his seat in office for an hour or two, and had no objection to our going to hear what passed between him and his people, for he was always courteous and considerate to them, and their complaints and grievances were not often directed against him, but were chiefly the result of petty disputes among themselves about caste and other such matters of which the Rajah was a highly competent judge. He would occasionally order a fine to be paid, or compensation to be levied from the delinquent party, and disregard to such an order was seldom exhibited. It sometimes happened that our visits to the Rajah’s palace were paid on the native holidays and festivals; and on these occasions the whole country-side used to flock to the entertainments given at the Rajah’s expense. It is hardly necessary to say that he distributed charitable gifts in food and money day by day to a considerable number of religious mendicants and professional beggars; but on the great holidays or festivals the expenditure of gratuitous food was something enormous, and due respect was shown to the visitors according to their various ranks and grades in native society. Music and song and dancing would last long past midnight, and few of the guests were allowed to go away empty-handed. It would be difficult to imagine a more genial and healthy state of relations than that which existed generally on the Rajah’s estates between him and his people. Doubtless many of them were poor and ignorant, but the mild despotism with which the Rajah ruled them required very little tempering from the interference of English law or officials.