When I first landed in Bombay, it appeared to me a little undignified that representatives of the British Government should set police spies to question a Member of Parliament’s chauffeur every morning and evening where he was going or had been, and with whom he had conversed. Of course it made no difference to the Member of Parliament, any more than the delightful spies in Eastern Bengal made any difference to me. But what was a joke to us may be anything but a joke to native Indians who are compelled to live permanently under a system of official surveillance which reads their private letters, detains their telegrams, and hires men to watch their actions. Far worse than the mere annoyance involved is the indignant contempt which our Government thus stores up against itself. Every now and then by such means it may discover the trail of some seditious movement. But the discovery of all the sedition in India would not be worth the loss of reputation to which we expose ourselves by resorting to methods that would exclude a man from any club in our country. There is something about espionage that stirs indignation more deeply than anything else in the world. But I do not wish to part from that land of great rivers with a mere feeling of bitterness. When I recall the quiet circuit of streams by which I slowly passed from Khulna to Barisal, and on to Dacca; and from Dacca through Mymensingh and Jamalpur and Serajganj and Goalundo, where the Ganges and Brahmaputra are joined, to Faridpur, where trains run back to Calcutta,—I lose the sense of bitterness, though there was plenty in the country. I think only of the fertile land basking under an uninterrupted sky, or of bright crowds of men in yellow, red, and white standing upon the river bank and shouting their “Bande Mataram” against the sunrise; or of long torchlight processions that conducted some leader of the nation home in his carriage through the blue night; or of little groups of schoolboys who had stayed on the platform till the cold of morning to cheer a passing train, delighted even to shiver for their country. “I fear we shall never meet again on life’s rough sea,” said a student at one place, being naturally proud of such beautiful English; and, certainly, one cannot hope to visit the Brahmaputra every week-end. But even from a good month’s distance, as London is, it seems impossible to believe that one petulant error can for all time produce division and rancorous hatred in so excellent a country and among a people so devoted to the same causes of freedom and nationality that we so much admire. FOOTNOTES: