CHAPTER II RATS AND MEN Plague and rats—Previous attempts to check plague—The rat-flea—War on rats—Plague mortality—A plague hospital—Symptoms of plague—Course of the sickness—Descriptions of former plagues—Inoculation—A Government inoculator 48 CHAPTER III THE EXTREMIST The custom of garlanding—The fortress of Singarh—Mr. Tilak—Religion and scholarship—Theory of the Vedas—His past history—Breach at Nagpur—His statement of his party’s aims and methods—“Self-reliance, not mendicancy”—The boycott—Growth of Indian unity—Quotations from Mr. Tilak’s speeches—His arrest and sentence in 1908 62 CHAPTER IV THE RYOT’S BURDEN Mr. Junshi on family worship—His passion for statistics—“Statistical abstract”—Finance and population—Expenditure on Army, Education, and official Christianity—The Land Settlement—Its origin and proportion—Is it tax or rent?—Lord Salisbury’s opinion—How the amount is fixed—Mr. Vaughan Nash on the Settlement—The cultivator’s income—How he clings to the land, even without profit—The money-lender and the Government—Collection of assessment—Ryots and zemindars—Permanent Settlement of Bengal—Suburbs of Poona—Character of the Ryot—Government as protector of the poor—Forest Department—Grazing and timber—Arms Act and wild beasts—The tiger as scarecrow—A village petition—A sacrifice to education 78 CHAPTER V THE SOUTHERN CITY The pride of Madras—Municipal labours—Decentralization Commission—A student of philosophy—The religion of the grave—The religion of healing—A temple of Vishnu—A family ceremony—Missionaries in Madras—The benefit of missions—Memory of good Governors—Sir Thomas Munro—Decline of Anglo-Indian manners—Causes of this—Distrust of British justice—Proposed separation of functions—Police—Drink question and revenue—Forms of Swadeshi 103 CHAPTER VI ON THE BEACH Meeting on Madras sands—Release of Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh—Song of “Bande Mataram”—Parody of Mr. Morley—Speeches—Audience—Absence of sedition—A Sanyasi’s speech 125 CHAPTER VII THE FLOODS OF ORISSA The country and government—Mountains, rivers, and plains—The great flood of 1907—Brown skeletons—Officials and figures—Settlement revision—Scene of flood and famine—Deposit of sand—Price of food—Chief sufferers—Village houses—Tax-collectors—Government action—Madhu Sudan Das—A call on an official—An official order—A Rajah’s breakfast 134 CHAPTER VIII “LORD OF THE WORLD” Pilgrims at Puri—Shrine of Juggernath—Legend of the car—Possible origin of the god’s fame—Benefit of equality—Brother and sister—Inequality in India—Its consequences on Indian and English manners—Possible growth of equality 152 CHAPTER IX THE DIVIDED LAND