Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 60

53. Otherwise called Sihon, or Syr Darya.

54. Two autobiographical works, the _Malfuzat_ and the Tuzukat, are attributed to Timur and probably were composed under his direction.

The latter was translated by Major Davey (Oxford, 1783), and the former, in part, by Major Stewart (Or. Transl. Fund, 1830). An independent version of the portion of the _Malfuzat_ relating to India will be found in E. & D., iii, pp. 389-477.

55. Ali Yazdi, commonly called Sharaf-ud-din, author of the _Zafarnama_ in Persian (see _ante_, chapter 68, note 46), Ibn Arabshah, in an Arabic work, describes Timur from a hostile point of view. (Encycl. Brit., 11th ed., s. v. 'Timur').

56. It is impossible within the limits of a note to discuss the problem of the origin of the gipsies. Much has been written about it, though nothing quite satisfactory. The gipsy, or Romany, language (_Romani chiv_, or 'tongue') certainly is closely related to, though not derived from, the existing languages of Northern India. Some of the forms are very archaic. A valuable English-Gipsy vocabulary compiled by Mr. (Sir George) and Mrs. Grierson was published in _Ind.

Ant._, vols. xv, xvi (1886,1887). The author's theory does not tally with the facts. Gipsies existed in Persia and Europe long before Timur's time. It is practically certain that they did not come through Egypt. The article 'Gypsies' by F. H. Groome in Chambers's _Encycl._ (1904) is good, and seems to the editor to be preferable to Dr. Gaster's article 'Gipsies' in _Encycl. Brit._, 11th ed., 1910.

57. Before the Codes were pa.s.sed (1859-1861) the criminal law administered in India was, in the main, that of the Muhammadans, and each judge's court had a Muhammadan law officer attached, who p.r.o.nounced a 'fatwa', or decision, intimating the law applicable to the case, and the penalty which might be inflicted. Several examples of these 'fatwas' will be found among the papers bound up with the author's 'Ramaseeana'.

58. See Koran, chapter 2. [W. H. S.] The pa.s.sage is the second sentence in chapter 2. The wording, as quoted, differs slightly from Sale's version.

59. See Koran, chapter 32. [W. H. S.]

60. Ibid., chapter 11. [W. H. S.] Sale's version, with trifling verbal differences. The 'mufti's' reasoning has been heard in Europe.

61. See Koran, chapter 15. [W. H. S.] Sale's version, with modifications.

62. 'This is a revelation of the most mighty, the merciful G.o.d; that thou mayest warn a people whose fathers were not warned, and who live in negligence. Our sentence hath justly been p.r.o.nounced against the greater part of them, wherefore they shall not believe. It shall be equal unto them whether thou preach unto them, or do not preach unto them; they shall not believe.' Koran, chapter 36. [W. H. S.] From beginning of the chapter. Sale's version; a sentence being omitted between 'believe' and 'It shall'.

63. I have never met another man so thoroughly master of the Koran as the Mufti, and yet he had the reputation of being a very corrupt man in his office. [W. H. S.]

64. Aleeoodeen; an unusual name; probably a misprint for Ala-ud-din.

65. The 17th chapter of the Koran opens with the words, 'Praise be unto him who transported his servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the farther temple of Jerusalem', 'from whence', as Sale observes, 'he was carried through the seven heavens to the presence of G.o.d, and brought back again to Mecca the same night'. The commentators dispute whether the journey to heaven was corporeally performed, or merely in a vision. 'But the received opinion is that it was no vision, but that he was actually transported in the body to his journey's end; and if any impossibility be objected, they think it a sufficient answer to say that it might easily be effected by an omnipotent agent.'

66. See Koran, chapter 15. [W. H. S.]

67. The Muhammadans believe that the Christians have tampered with the Scriptures.

68. It would be difficult to give more vivid expression to the eternal conflict between the theological and the scientific spirit.

Compare the remarks _ante_, chapter 26, note 11, on the att.i.tude of Hindoos towards modern science.

69. _Paradise Lost_, Book VIII. [W. H. S.] Line 167; from Raphael's address to Adam.

CHAPTER 69

Indian Police--Its Defects--and their Cause and Remedy.

On the 26th[1] we crossed the river Jumna, over a bridge of boats, kept up by the King of Oudh for the use of the public, though his majesty is now connected with Delhi only by the tomb of his ancestor;[2] and his territories are separated from the imperial city by the two great rivers, Ganges and Jumna.

We proceeded to Farrukhnagar, about twelve miles over an execrable road running over a flat but rugged surface of unproductive soil.[3]

India is, perhaps, the only civilized country in the world where a great city could be approached by such a road from the largest military Station in the empire,[4] not more than three stages distant. After breakfast the head native police officer of the division came to pay his respects. He talked of the dreadful murders which used to be perpetrated in this neighbourhood by miscreants, who found shelter in the territories of the Begam Samru,[5] whither his followers dared not hunt for them; and mentioned a case of nine persons who had been murdered just within the boundary of our territories about seven years before, and thrown into a dry well. He was present at the inquest held on their bodies, and described their appearance; and I found that they were the bodies of a news writer from Lah.o.r.e, who, with his eight companions, had been murdered by Thugs on his way back to Rohilkhand. I had long before been made acquainted with the circ.u.mstances of this murder and the perpetrators had all been secured, but we wanted this link in the chain of evidence. It had been described to me as having taken place within the boundary of the Begam's territory, and I applied to her for a report on the inquest. She declared that no bodies had been discovered about the time mentioned; and I concluded that the ignorance of the people of the neighbourhood was pretended, as usual in such cases, with a view to avoid a summons to give evidence in our courts. I referred forthwith to the magistrate of the district, and found the report that I wanted, and thereby completed the chain of evidence upon a very important case. The Thanadar seemed much surprised to find that I was so well acquainted with the circ.u.mstances of this murder, but still more that the perpetrators were not the poor old Begam's subjects, but our own.

The police officers employed on our borders find it very convenient to trace the perpetrators of all murders and gang robberies into the territories of native chiefs, whose subjects they accuse often when they know that the crimes have been committed by our own. They are, on the one hand, afraid to seize or accuse the real offenders, lest they should avenge themselves by some personal violence, or by thefts or robberies, which they often commit with a view to get them tumed out of office as inefficient; and, on the other, they are tempted to conceal the real offenders by a liberal share of the spoil, and a promise of not offending again within their beat. Their tenure of office is far too insecure, and their salaries are far too small.

They are often dismissed summarily by the magistrate if they send him in no prisoners; and also if they send in to him prisoners who are not ultimately convicted, because a magistrate's merits are too often estimated by the proportion that his convictions bear to his acquittals among the prisoners committed for trial to the sessions.

Men are often ultimately acquitted for want of judicial proof, when there is abundance of that moral proof on which a police officer or magistrate has to act in the discharge of his duties; and in a country where gangs of professional and hereditary robbers and murderers extend their depredations into very remote parts, and seldom commit them in the districts in which they reside, the most vigilant police officer must often fail to discover the perpetrators of heavy crimes that take place within his range.[6]

When they cannot find them, the native officers either seize innocent persons, and frighten them into confession, or else they try to conceal the crime, and in this they are seconded by the sufferers in the robbery, who will always avoid, if they can, a prosecution in our courts, and by their neighbours, who dread being summoned to give evidence as a serious calamity. The man who has been robbed, instead of being an object of compa.s.sion among his neighbours, often incurs their resentment for subjecting them to this calamity; and they not only pay largely themselves, but make him pay largely, to have his losses concealed from the magistrate. Formerly, when a district was visited by a judge of circuit to hold his sessions only once or twice a year, and men were constantly bound over to prosecute and appear as evidence from sessions to sessions, till they were wearied and worried to death, this evil was much greater than at present, when every district is provided with its judge of sessions, who is, or ought to be, always ready to take up the cases committed for trial by the magistrate.[7] This was one of the best measures of Lord W.

Bentinck's admirable, though much abused, administration of the government of India.[8] Still, however, the inconvenience and delay of prosecution in our courts are so great, and the chance of the ultimate conviction of great offenders is so small, that strong temptations are held out to the police to conceal or misrepresent the character of crimes; and they must have a great feeling of security in their tenure of office, and more adequate salaries, better chances of rising, and better supervision over them, before they will resist such temptation. These Thanadars, and all the public officers under them, are all so very inadequately paid that corruption among them excites no feeling of odium or indignation in the minds of those among whom they live and serve. Such feelings are rather directed against the government that places them in such situations of so much labour and responsibility with salaries so inadequate; and thereby confers upon them virtually a licence to pay themselves by preying upon those whom they are employed ostensibly to protect. They know that with such salaries they can never have the reputation of being honest, however faithfully they may discharge their duties; and it is too hard to expect that men will long submit to the necessity of being thought corrupt, without reaping some of the advantages of corruption. Let the Thanadars have everywhere such salaries as will enable them to maintain their families in comfort, and keep up that appearance of respectability which their station in society demands; and over every three or four Thanadars' jurisdiction let there be an officer appointed upon a higher scale of salary, to supervise and control their proceedings, and armed with powers to decide minor offences. To these higher stations the Thanadars will be able to look forward as their reward for a faithful and zealous discharge of their duties.[9]

He who can suppose that men so inadequately paid, who have no promotion to look forward to, and feel no security in their tenure of office, and consequently no hope of a provision for old age,[10] will be zealous and honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very imperfectly acquainted with human nature, and with the motives by which men are influenced in all quarters of the world; but we are none of us so ignorant, for we all know that the same motives actuate public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted successfully upon this knowledge in the scale of salaries and gradation of rank a.s.signed to European civil functionaries, and to all native functionaries employed in the judicial and revenue branches of the public service; and why not act upon it in that of the salaries a.s.signed to the native officers employed in the police? The magistrate of a district gets a salary of from two thousand to two thousand five hundred rupees a month.[11] The native officer next under him is the Thanadar, or head native police officer of a subdivision of his district, containing many towns and villages, with a population of a hundred thousand souls. This officer gets a salary of twenty-five rupees a month. He cannot possibly do his duty unless he keeps one or two horses; indeed, he is told by the magistrate that he cannot; and that he must have one or two horses, or resign his post. The people, seeing how much we expect from the Thanadar, and how little we give him, submit to his demands for contributions without murmuring, and consider almost any demand trivial from a man so employed and so paid. They are confounded at our inconsistency, and say, 'We see you giving high salaries and high prospects of advancement to men who have nothing to do but collect your rents, and decide our disputes about pounds, shillings, and pence, which we used to decide much better ourselves, when we had no other court but that of our elders--while those who are to protect life and property, to keep peace over the land, and enable the industrious to work in security, maintain their families, and pay the government revenue, are left with hardly any pay at all.'

There is really nothing in our rule in India which strikes the people so much as this inconsistency, the evil effects of which are so great and manifest; the only way to remedy the evil is to give a greater feeling of security in the tenure of office, a higher rate of salary, the hope of a provision for old age, and, above all, the gradation of rank, by interposing the officers I speak of between the Thanadars and the magistrate.[12] This has all been done in the establishments for the collection of the revenue, and administration of civil justice.

Hobbes, in his _Leviathan_, says, 'And seeing that the end of punishment is not revenge and discharge of choler, but correction, either of the offender, or of others by his example, the severest punishments are to be inflicted for those crimes that are of most danger to the public; such as are those which proceed from malice to the government established; those that spring from contempt of justice; those that provoke indignation in the mult.i.tude; and those which, unpunished, seem authorized, as when they are committed by sons, servants, or favourites of men in authority.[13] For indignation carrieth men, not only against the actors and authors of injustice, but against all power that is likely to protect them; as in the case of Tarquin, when, for the insolent act of one of his sons, he was driven out of Rome, and the monarchy itself dissolved.'

(Para. 2, chapter 30.) Almost every one of our Thanadars is, in his way, a little Tarquin, exciting the indignation of the people against his rulers; and no time should be lost in converting him into something better.

By the obstacles which are still everywhere opposed to the conviction of offenders, in the distance of our courts, the forms of procedure, and other causes of 'the law's delay', we render the duties of our police establishment everywhere 'more honoured in the breach than the observance', by the ma.s.s of the people among whom they are placed. We must, as I have before said, remove some of these obstacles to the successful prosecution of offenders in our criminal courts, which tend so much to deprive the government of all popular aid and support in the administration of justice; and to convert all our police establishments into instruments of oppression, instead of what they should be, the efficient means of protection to the persons, property, and character of the innocent. Crimes multiply from the a.s.surance the guilty are everywhere apt to feel of impunity to crime; and the more crimes multiply, the greater is the aversion the people everywhere feel to aid the government in the arrest and conviction of criminals, because they see more and more the innocent punished by attendance upon distant courts at great cost and inconvenience, to give evidence upon points which seem to them unimportant, while the guilty escape owing to technical difficulties which they can never understand.[14]

The best way to remove these obstacles is to interpose officers between the Thanadar and the magistrate, and arm them with judicial powers to try minor cases, leaving an appeal open to the magistrate, and to extend the final jurisdiction of the magistrate to a greater range of crimes, though it should involve the necessity of reducing the measure of punishment annexed to them.[15] Beccaria has justly observed that 'Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than by the severity of punishment. The certainty of a small punishment will make a stronger impression than the fear of one more severe, if attended with the hope of escaping; for it is the nature of mankind to be terrified at the approach of the smallest inevitable evil; whilst hope, the best gift of Heaven, has the power of dispelling the apprehensions of a greater, especially if supported by examples of impunity, which weakness or avarice too frequently affords.'

I ought to have mentioned that the police of a district, in our Bengal territories, consists of a magistrate and his a.s.sistant, who are European gentlemen of the Civil Service; and a certain number of Thanadars, from twelve to sixteen, who preside over the different sub-divisions of the district in which they reside with their establishments. These Thanadars get twenty-five rupees a month, have under them four or five Jemadars upon eight rupees, and thirty or forty Barkandazes upon four rupees a month. The Jemadars are, most of them, placed in charge of 'nakas', or sub-divisions of the Thanadar's jurisdiction, the rest are kept at their headquarters, ready to move to any point where their services may be required. These are all paid by government; but there is in each village one watchman, and in larger villages more than one, who are appointed by the heads of villages, and paid by the communities, and required daily or periodically to report all the police matters of their villages to the Thanadars.[16]

The distance between the magistrates and Thanadars is at present immeasurable; and an infinite deal of mischief is done by the latter and those under them, of which the magistrates know nothing whatever.

In the first place, they levy a fee of one rupee from every village at the festival of the Holi in February, and another at that of the Dasehra in October, and in each Thanadar's jurisdiction there are from one to two hundred villages. These and numerous other unauthorized exactions they share with those under them, and with the native officers about the person of the magistrate, who, if not conciliated, can always manage to make them appear unfit for their places.[17]

A robbery affords a rich harvest. Some article of stolen property is found in one man's house, and by a little legerdemain it is conveyed to that of another, both of whom are made to pay liberally; the man robbed also pays, and all the members of the village community are made to do the same. They are all called to the court of the Thanadar to give evidence as to what they have seen or heard regarding either the fact or the persons in the remotest degree connected with it--as to the arrests of the supposed offenders--the search of their house-- the character of their grandmothers and grandfathers--and they are told that they are to be sent to the magistrate a hundred miles distant, and then made to stand at the door among a hundred and fifty pairs of shoes, till _his excellency_ the n.a.z.ir, the under-sheriff of the court, may be pleased to announce them to his highness the magistrate, which, of course, he will not do without a _consideration_. To escape all these threatened evils, they pay handsomely and depart in peace. The Thanadar reports that an attempt to rob a house by persons unknown had been defeated by his exertions, and the _good fortune_ of the magistrate; and sends a liberal share of spoil to those who are to read his report to that functionary.[18]

This goes on more or less in every district, but more especially in those where the magistrate happens to be a man of violent temper, who is always surrounded by knaves, because men who have any regard for their character will not approach him--or a weak, good-natured man, easily made to believe anything, and managed by favourites--or one too fond of field-sports, or of music, painting, European languages, literature, and sciences, or lastly, of his own ease.[19] Some magistrates think they can put down crime by dismissing the Thanadar; but this tends only to prevent crimes being reported to him; for in such cases the feelings of the people are in exact accordance with the interests of the Thanadars; and crimes augment by the a.s.surance of impunity thereby given to criminals. The only remedy for all this evil is to fill up the great gulf between the magistrate and Thanadar by officers who shall be to him what I have described the patrol officers to be to the collectors of customs, at once the _tapis_ of Prince Husain, and the _telescope_ of Prince Ali--a medium that will enable him to be everywhere, and see everything.[20] And why is this remedy not applied? Simply and solely because such appointments would be given to the uncovenanted, and might tend indirectly to diminish the appointments open to the covenanted servants of the company.

Young gentlemen of the Civil Service are supposed to be doing the duties which would be a.s.signed to such officers, while they are at school as a.s.sistants to magistrates and collectors; and were this great gulf filled up by efficient covenanted officers, they would have no school to go to. There is no doubt some truth in this; but the welfare of a whole people should not be sacrificed to keep this school or play-ground open exclusively for them; let them act for a time as they would unwillingly do with the uncovenanted, and they will learn much more than if they occupied the ground exclusively and acted alone--they will be always with people ready and willing to tell them the real state of things; whereas, at present, they are always with those who studiously conceal it from them.[21]

It is a common practice with Thanadars all over the country to connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from their distant expeditions.

They [_scil._ the gangs] go out ostensibly in search of service, on the termination of the rains of one season in October, and return before the commencement of the next in June; but their vocation is always well known to the police, and to all the people of their neighbourhood, and very often to the magistrates themselves, who could, if they would, secure them on their return with their booty; but this would not secure their conviction unless the proprietors could be discovered, which they scarcely ever could. Were the police officers to seize them, they would be all finally acquitted and released by the judges--the magistrate would get into disrepute with his superiors, by the number of acquittals compared with convictions exhibited in his monthly tables; and he would vent his spleen upon the poor Thanadar, who would at the same time have incurred the resentment of the robbers; and between both, he would have no possible chance of escape. He therefore consults his own interest and his own case by leaving them to carry on their trade of robbery or murder unmolested; and his master, the magistrate, is well pleased not to be pestered with charges against men whom he has no chance of getting ultimately convicted. It was in this way that so many hundred families of a.s.sa.s.sins by profession were able for so many generations to reside in the most cultivated and populous parts of our territories, and extend their depredations into the remotest parts of India, before our System of operations was brought to bear upon them in 1830. Their profession was perfectly well known to the people of the districts in which they resided, and to the greater part of the police; they murdered not within their own district, and the police of that district cared nothing about what they might do beyond it.[22]

The most respectable native gentleman in the city and district told me one day an amusing instance of the proceedings of a native officer of that district, which occurred about five years ago. 'In a village which he had purchased and let in farms, a shopkeeper was one day superintending the cutting of some sugar-cane which he had purchased from a cultivator as it stood. His name was Girdhari, I think, and the boy who was cutting it for him was the son of a poor man called Madari. Girdhari wanted to have the cane cut down as near as he could to the ground, while the boy, to save himself the trouble of stooping, would persist in cutting it a good deal too high up. After admonishing him several times, the shopkeeper gave him a smart clout on the head. The boy, to prevent a repet.i.tion, called out, "Murder!

Girdhari has killed me--Girdhari has killed me!" His old father, who was at work carrying away the cane at a little distance out of sight, ran off to the village watchman, and, in his anger, told him that Girdhari had murdered his son. The watchman went as fast as he could to the Thanadar, or head police officer of the division, who resided some miles distant. The Thanadar ordered off his subordinate officer, the Jemadar, with half a dozen policemen, to arrange everything for an inquest on the body, by the time he should reach the place, with all due pomp. The Jemadar went to the house of the murderer, and dismounting, ordered all the shopkeepers of the village, who were many and respectable, to be forthwith seized, and bound hand and feet. "So", said the Jemadar, "you have all been aiding and abetting your friend in the murder of poor Madari's only son." "May it please your excellency, we have never heard of any murder." "Impudent scoundrels," roared the Jemadar, "does not the poor boy lie dead in the sugar-cane field, and is not his highness the Thanadar coming to hold an inquest upon it? and do you take us for fools enough to believe that any scoundrel among you would venture to commit a deliberate murder without being aided and abetted by all the rest?"

The village watchman began to feel some apprehension that he had been too precipitate; and entreated the Jemadar to go first and see the body of the boy. "What do you take us for," said the Jemadar, "a thing without a stomach? Do you suppose that government servants can live and labour on air? Are we to go and examine bodies upon empty stomachs? Let his father take care of the body, and let these murdering shopkeepers provide us something to eat." Nine rupees'

worth of sweetmeats, and materials for a feast were forthwith collected at the expense of the shopkeepers, who stood bound, and waiting the arrival of his highness the Thanadar, who was soon after seen approaching majestically upon a richly caparisoned horse.

"What," said the Jemadar, "is there n.o.body to go and receive his highness in due form?" One of the shopkeepers was untied, and presented with fifteen rupees by his family, and those of the other shopkeepers. These he took up and presented to his highness, who deigned to receive them through one of his train, and then dismounted and partook of the feast that had been provided. "Now", said his highness, "we will go and hold an inquest on the body of the poor boy"; and off moved all the great functionaries of government to the sugar-cane field, with the village watchman leading the way. The father of the boy met them as they entered, and was pointed out by the village watchman. "Where", said the Thanadar, "is your poor boy?"

"There," said Madari, "cutting the canes." "How, cutting the canes?

Was he not murdered by the shopkeepers?" "No," said Madari, "he was beaten by Girdhari, and richly deserved it! I find." Girdhari and the boy were called up, and the little urchin said that he called out murder merely to prevent Girdhari from giving him another clout on the side of the head. His father was then fined nine rupees for giving a false alarm, and Girdhari fifteen for so unmercifully beating the boy; and they were made to pay on the instant, under the penalty of all being sent off forty miles to the magistrate. Having thus settled this very important affair, his highness the Thanadar walked back to the shop, ordered all the shopkeepers to be set at liberty, smoked his pipe, mounted his horse, and rode home, followed by all his police officers, and well pleased with his day's work.'

The farmer of the village soon after made his way to the city, and communicated the circ.u.mstances to my old friend, who happened to be on intimate terms with the magistrate.[23] He wrote a polite note to the Thanadar to say that he should never get any rents from his estate if the occupants were liable to such fines as these, and that he should take the earliest opportunity of mentioning them to his friend the magistrate. The Thanadar ascertained that he was really in the habit of visiting the magistrate, and communicating with him freely; and hushed up the matter by causing all, save the expenses of the feast, to be paid back. These are things of daily occurrence in all parts of our dominions, and the Thanadars are not afraid to play such 'fantastic tricks' because all those under and all those above them share more or less in the spoil, and are bound in honour to conceal them from the European magistrate, whom it is the interest of all to keep in the dark. They know that the people will hardly ever complain, from the great dislike they all have to appear in our courts, particularly when it is against any of the officers of those courts, or their friends and creatures in the district police.[24]

When our operations commenced, in 1830, these a.s.sa.s.sins [_scil._ the Thugs] revelled over every road in India in gangs of hundreds, without the fear of punishment from divine or human laws; but there is not now, I believe, a road in India infested by them. That our government has still defects, and great ones, must be obvious to every one who has travelled much over India with the requisite qualifications and disposition to observe; but I believe that in spite of all the defects I have noticed above in our police System, the life, property, and character of the innocent are now more secure, and all their advantages more freely enjoyed, than they ever were under any former government with whose history we are acquainted, or than they now are under any native government in India.[25]

Those who think they are not so almost always refer to the reign of Shah Jahan, when men like Tavernier travelled so securely all over India with their bags of diamonds; but I would ask them whether they think that the life, property, and character of the innocent could be anywhere very secure, or their advantages very freely enjoyed, in a country where a man could do openly with impunity what the traveller describes to have been done by the Persian physician of the Governor of Allahabad? This governor, being sickly, had in attendance upon him _eleven physicians_, one of whom was a European gentleman of education, Claudius Maille, of Bourges.[26] The chief favourite of the eleven was, however, a Persian, 'who one day threw his wife from the top of a battlement to the ground in a fit of jealousy. He thought the fall would kill her, but she had only a few ribs broken; whereupon the kindred of the woman came and demanded justice at the feet of the governor. The governor, sending for the physician, commanded him to be gone, resolving to retain him no longer in his service. The physician obeyed; and putting his poor maimed wife in a palankeen, he set forward upon the road with all his family. But he had not gone above three or four days' journey from the city, when the governor, finding himself worse than he was wont to be, sent to recall him; which the physician perceiving, stabbed his wife, his four children, and thirteen female slaves, and returned again to the Governor, who said not a word to him, but entertained him again in his service.' This occurred within Tavernier's own knowledge and about the time he visited Allahabad; and is related as by no means a very extraordinary circ.u.mstance.[27]

Notes: