You are living at one of the up-country stations, where the freer air of the jungle imparts to babes and sucklings a voracious appetite. Besides your own _dhye_, brought from Calcutta, there is not another wet-nurse to be had, for love or money. Immediately Dhye strikes for higher wages. The Baba Sahib, she says, has defiled her rice; yesterday he put his foot into her curry; to-day he washes the monkey's tail in her consecrated lotah. What shall she do? she has lost caste; the presents to the Brahmins, that her reinstatement will cost her, will consume all her earnings from the beginning. _Gurreeb-purwan_, O munificent and merciful! what shall she do? She strikes for higher wages.--But you are hard-hearted and hard-headed; you will not pay,--by Gunga, not another pice! by Latchtmee, not one cowry more!--Oh, then she will leave; with a heavy heart she will turn her back on the blessed baby; she will pour dust upon her head before the Mem Sahib, at whose door her disgrace shall lie, and she will return to her kindred.--Not she! the durwan, grim and incorruptible, has his orders; she cannot pass the gate. Oho! then immediately she dries up; no "fount," and Baby famishing. You try ass's milk; it does not agree with Baby; besides, it costs a rupee a pint. You try a goat; she does not agree with Baby, for she butts him treacherously, and, leaping over his prostrate body, scampers, like Leigh Hunt's pig in Smithfield Market, up all manner of figurative streets. Then you send for Dhye, and say, "Milk, or I shave your head!" Milk or death! And, lo, a miracle!--the "fount" again!--Baby is saved. What was, then, the conjuration and the mighty magic? In the folds of her _saree_ the _dhye_ conceals leaves of _chambeli_, the Indian jessamine, roots of _dhallapee_, the jungle radish. She chews the _chambeli_, and hungry Baby, struggling for the "fount," is insulted with apples of Sodom; she swallows a portion of _dhallapee_, and he is regaled as with the melting melons of Ceylon. * * * * *