Thus ornamented by a graceful hospitality, I drove away, some sixteen miles south-west of the city, through an irrigated and fertile land of terraced rice-fields, draining the abundant water that rice flourishes in from one level into another. Slowly we drew near a great blue mountain, conspicuous from Poona among the other hills for its height and flat-topped outline. It is the mountain fortress of Singarh, famed in Deccan history. Unknown peoples had made it their rock of defence, Mohammedans had reigned there, Mahrattas took it by storm. Finally the British, some ninety years ago, bombarded the place till it could stand no more, and now all that afternoon I had watched a British helio on its summit blinking messages to the Poona cantonment. There is a long, steep climb before the old fortifications that run round the edge of the cliffs are reached, for the top is as high as Ben Nevis. But passing through a western arch in the walls we entered on the broad grassy plateau while still the low horizon was brilliant with sunset, and against the sunset a red-turbaned, white-clad figure, upright but using a long staff, came to meet me. Bal Gangadhar Tilak appeared to be about ten years older than Mr. Gokhale, but it is difficult to tell his age, for if ever he takes off his Mahratta turban, one sees his head shaven to the back, where the hair grows in a long, black tuft, as is the fashion of his race or caste. His full, brown eyes are singularly brilliant, steady with daring, rather aggressive But his general manner is very quiet and controlled, and both in conversation and public speaking he talks in brief, assured sentences, quite free from rhetoric, outwardly passionless even in moments of the highest passion, and seldom going beyond the statement of facts, or, rather, of his aspect of facts at the time. His apparent calmness and self-command may arise partly from courageous indifference to his own future, partly from prolonged legal practice at his own trials. At first one would say, his was the legal mind, subtle, given to fine distinctions, rather capable of expressing thought than of thinking, and quick to adapt both the expression and the thought to the audience of the moment. But there is much in his life and energies that seems to show that his natural bias was towards religious speculation and scholarly traditions.