of nomads who lived by hunting and stealing, who are to be found in every Indian fair as acrobats, jugglers, and fortune-tellers, or tramping painfully through the peninsula with a tame bear or performing monkeys. In short the Sansis are very similar to gipsies, if they are not, indeed, the parent stock from which our own "Egyptians" spring. Beeroo came up to the sitters, but as he was of low caste, or rather of no caste, he took up his position a little apart, leaning on a long knotted bamboo staff, his coal-black eyes glancing keenly around him. "It is Beeroo," said Dulaloo the Sikh, and with this greeting lapsed into silence. Aladin ceased stroking his henna-stained beard, and looked at the new-comer. "Ai, Beeroo! What news?" "There is a tiger at Hathni Khoond, and I have marked him down. Is the Sahib here?" "The Sahib sleeps now," replied Aladin; "it is the time for his noontide rest. He will awaken at four o'clock." "I will see His Honour then," replied Beeroo, "and there will be a hunt to-morrow." "Is it a big tiger?" asked Bullen, the son of Bishen. "Aho!" and the Sansi, sliding his hands down the bamboo staff, sank to a sitting posture. "When was it the Sahib slew his last tiger?" asked Piroo Ditta, the telegraph-clerk. "Last May, at Mohonagh, near the temple," answered Aladin; "I remember well, for the elephant lost a toenail in fording the river-bed--poor beast!" "At Mohonagh! That is where the Shagul Tree is," said Gobind Ram. "True, brother. Hast heard the tale?" There was a chorus of "noes," that drowned Gobind Ram's "yes," and Aladin, taking a long pull at his water-pipe, began: