[176] Miss Gaster. VII "O that I could do something for India!" She had done much, and was yet to do more; but it was a constant regret of her later years that she had failed to carry through one piece of work which she had planned. This was a book on the allied questions of Indian Irrigation and Indian Land Tenure, to which, in her first draft, she had given the fanciful title _The Zemindar, the Sun and the Watering Pot as Affecting Life or Death in India_. Miss Nightingale had first written the book in 1874, and she had several copies privately printed. The earliest copies are prefaced by the following notes on "Dramatis Personæ." They introduce, besides the Minister on whom at this time she pinned her hopes, her principal informants, and they show the spirit of the book:-- THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY: A real workman and born ruler of men. Secretary of State for India by the grace of God. SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Ex-Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Gulliver among the Lilliputians. SIR ARTHUR COTTON, R.E.: The most perfect master of the water question living. COLONEL RUNDALL, R.E.: Head of Water Department of Bengal, then of all India; now at home. COLONEL HAIG, R.E.: Head of Water Department of Bengal; now at home ill. THE ZEMINDAR: Created Landlord out of Tax-Gatherer. Growing rich. THE RYOT: Created Slave out of Landowner or Privileged Cultivator. Starving. For while "wealth accumulates, men decay."