'When Hurdeo Singh had beheld the herald raise his right arm, his own had gone up with it, and from his mouth had come the cry, "Don't! Don't." 'But it was too late. The herald had raised his arm, turned round his head, and plunged the sharp stiletto into his mother's breast.' It would be scarcely possible in an article that ranges over the light literature of Anglo-India to omit mentioning the name of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who is the most prominent and by far the most popular of Anglo-Indian authors. Yet our reference to his writings must be very brief, since most of them lie beyond the scope of our present subject; for although Mr. Kipling's short stories are famous, and he is a consummate artist in black and white, yet in the complete edition of his volumes up to date there is, in fact, but one full-sized Indian novel, and for this he is only responsible in part. Nor, assuming that the Indian chapters of the _Naulakha_[14] may be ascribed to him, would it be fair criticism to treat them as good samples of his work, or as illustrating his distinctive genius. The attempt in this story to bring together West and East, and to strike bold contrasts by setting down a Yankee fresh from Colorado before the palace gate of a Maharaja in the sands of western Rajputana, is too daring a venture; and the plot's development, though here and there are some touches of true vision and some vigorous passages, labours under the weight of its extravagant improbability. The American's restless energy, brought face to face with Oriental immobility, expresses itself in the following way: 'It made him tired to see the fixedness, the apathy, and lifelessness of this rich and populous world, which should be up and stirring by rights--trading, organising, inventing, building new towns, making the old ones keep up with the procession, laying new railroads, going in for fresh enterprises, and keeping things humming. '"They've got resources enough," he said. "It isn't as if they had the excuse that the country's poor. It's a good country. Move the population of a lively Colorado town to Rhatore, set up a good local paper, organise a board of trade, and let the world know what is here, and we'd have a boom in six months that would shake the empire. But what's the use? They're dead. They're mummies. They're wooden images. There isn't enough real, old-fashioned, downright rustle and razzle-dazzle and 'git up and git' in Gokral Seetaram to run a milk-cart."'