On the Pooneah day then, or the night before, many of these friends would meet. The day has long been known to all the villages round, and nothing could better shew the patriarchal semi-feudal style in which they ruled over their villages than the customs in connection with this anniversary. Some days before it, requisitions have been made on all the villages in any way connected with the factory, for various articles of diet. The herdsmen have to send a tribute of milk, curds, and _ghee_ or clarified butter. Cultivators of root crops or fruit send in samples of their produce, in the shape of huge bundle of plantains, immense jack-fruits, or baskets of sweet potatoes, yams, and other vegetables. The _koomhar_ or potter has to send in earthen pots and jars. The _mochee_ or worker in leather, brings with him a sample of his work in the shape of a pair of shoes. These are pounced on by your servants and _omlah_, the omlah being the head men in the office. It is a fine time for them. Wooden shoes, umbrellas, brass pots, fowls, goats, fruits, in fact all the productions of your country side are sent or brought in. It is the old feudal tribute of the middle ages back again. During the day the _cutcherry_ or office is crowded with the more respectable villagers, paying in rents and settling accounts. The noise and bustle are great, but an immense quantity of work is got through. The village putwarries and head men are all there with their voluminous accounts. Your rent-collector, called a _tehseeldar_, has been busy in the villages with the tenants and putwarries, collecting rent for the great Pooneah day. There is a constant chink of money, a busy hum, a scratching of innumerable pens. Under every tree, 'neath the shade of every hut, busy groups are squatted round some acute accountant. Totals are being totted up on all hands. From greasy recesses in the waistband a dirty bundle is slowly pulled forth, and the desired sum reluctantly counted out. From early morn till dewy eve this work goes on, and you judge your Pooneah to have been a good or bad one by the amount you are able to collect. Peons, with their brass badges flashing in the sun, and their red puggrees shewing off their bronzed faces and black whiskers, are despatched in all directions for defaulters. There is a constant going to and fro, a hurrying and bustling in the crowd, a hum as of a distant fair pervading the place, and by evening the total of the day's collections is added up, and while the sahib and his friends take their sherry and bitters, the omlah and servants retire to wash and feast, and prepare for the night's festivities.