We have had a slight disturbance in our household, the first serious one since we sent away those servants at Benares for taking presents. This time it was rather our fault. The Puttealah Rajah always sends, with his fruit and vegetables, various bottles, some containing rose water, and the others some sort of spirits. We ought to have broken the last, but we told the native servants to divide everything amongst them, and one of the kitmutgars, who got for his share a bottle of these spirits, asked some of the others to dine with him, took great care to drink nothing but water himself, and persuaded two others to get very drunk with what he called sherbet, and then they began to quarrel. It is such an extreme disgrace for a Mussulman to be drunk, and so degrading in the eyes of all the others, that J. turned them off forthwith. I was against it, as it had been a trick upon them, and partly our fault, but I only insisted on the giver of the feast being turned off too. As these men have only four shillings a week for themselves and families, of course they can save nothing, and if they are turned away at a distance from home they really may die of starvation. They went crying about for three or four days, and tried Giles and Wright, who could not interfere; and at last they watched me into my room yesterday, and came with two or three of the head servants to speak for them. I never can resist them; they cry, and knock their heads against the ground, and always make use of such touching expressions--that they are so very wicked, and so very unhappy, and that God forgives everybody their faults, and that they must and will die if they are not forgiven. However, I was very firm, and said I knew it was no use asking Major J., and that I never could look upon them again as respectable servants, and that none of the old servants ever gave them such an example, and would not like to associate with them. But then the old ones turned against me; and then I said, I would give them money to take them home, and then they cried still more about the disgrace; so at last I said I would ask Major J., though I was sure it was of no use, &c. Sometimes he does take it amiss; but this time he said, in his own diplomatic way, that in fact he had sent them to me, for he knew I should not resist their grief, and as _he_ had sent them away he did not know how otherwise to help them. Giles, to whose department they belong, had been miserable about them. CHAPTER XIX. Saturday, June 14, 1838.