Such is the history of the quaint ballad of the English Governor, the Parsi millionaire, and the Koli Patel.  It seems to us to crystallise the honourable connection and friendship which has existed from the earliest days of British rule in Bombay between the aboriginal-fishermen, the Parsi pioneers of commerce and the English Government in the person of its highest representative.  It recalls to us the days of siege and warfare when the Governor of the struggling settlement sought the help of the sturdy fishermen and when Rustom Dorabji put himself at their head, formed them into a rudely-drilled corps, and drove the Sidi off the island.  It recalls the action of the Honourable Thomas Hodges in their behalf a century and a half ago, and the subsequent confirmation of their ancient rights by Sir James Fergusson and Sir Bartle Frere.  And lastly it represents a belief, which has attained almost the sanctity of religion in the heart of Kolidom, that between themselves and the King’s representative in Bombay there exists a bond of good-feeling and respect which dating as it does from 1675 has been welded firm by time and shall never be broken.

[Illustration:  A Koli.]

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XVII.

THE TRIBE ERRANT.

[Illustration:  A Deccani Fruit-seller.]

In the more thickly-populated quarters of the city of Bombay—­quarters that are rarely explored by the European, a succession of criers and hawkers pass through the streets from morn till eve and sometimes far into the night.  In the early morning, before the house-sparrow has chirped himself and his family into wakefulness, you catch the doleful and long-drawn cry of the early Fakir or Mahomedan beggar, whose object is not so much to wake the Faithful and bid them remember “the prayer that is better than sleep” as to be the earliest bird to catch the mouthful of Moslem charity.  Watch him as he awakens the echoes of the quarter by repeating in the most melancholy tones Ali’s famous gift of his sons to the beggars of the Hegira or some other great tradition of the generosity of Ali, set to verse for the special behoof of his brotherhood by some needy poetaster like the famous Nazir of Agra.  He is followed by another who chants in deep bass tones a legend explanatory of the virtues of the great saint of Baghdad.  But Ali is the favourite of the beggar-tribe, because forsooth the beggar runs no risk in singing his praises.  If one glorify the other three Khalifas in a Sunni quarter, it is well with one, but not so in an area devoted to the Shia population:  and so the beggar chooses Ali’s name as a convenient and fitting means of opening the purse-strings of both the great Musulman sects.