name may have been, with the addition of ‘Baba,’ which is simply a pet name for a child.  These planters know every village for miles and miles.  They know most of the leading men in each village by name.  The villagers know all about them, discuss their affairs with the utmost freedom, and not a single thing, ever so trivial, happens in the planter’s home but it is known and commented on in all the villages that lie within the ilaka (jurisdiction) of the factory.

The hospitality of these planters is unbounded.  They are most of them much liked by all the natives round.  I came a ‘stranger amongst them,’ and in one sense, and not a flattering sense, they tried ’to take me in,’ but only in one or two instances, which I shall not specify here.  By nearly all I was welcomed and kindly treated, and I formed some very lasting friendships among them.  Old traditions of princely hospitality still linger among them.  They were clannish in the best sense of the word.  The kindness and attention given to aged or indigent relations was one of their best traits.  I am afraid the race is fast dying out.  Lavish expenditure, and a too confiding faith in their native dependants has often brought the usual result.  But many of my readers will associate with the name of Purneah or Bhaugulpore planter, recollections of hospitality and unostentatious kindness, and memories of glorious sport and warm-hearted friendships.

On the Pooneah day then, or the night before, many of these friends would meet.  The day has long been known to all the villages round, and nothing could better shew the patriarchal semi-feudal style in which they ruled over their villages than the customs in connection with this anniversary.  Some days before it, requisitions have been made on all the villages in any way connected with the factory, for various articles of diet.  The herdsmen have to send a tribute of milk, curds, and ghee or clarified butter.  Cultivators of root crops or fruit send in samples of their produce, in the shape of huge bundle of plantains, immense jack-fruits, or baskets of sweet potatoes, yams, and other vegetables.  The koomhar or potter has to send in earthen pots and jars.  The mochee or worker in leather, brings with him a sample of his work in the shape of a pair of shoes.  These are pounced on by your servants and omlah, the omlah being the head men in the office.  It is a fine time for them.  Wooden shoes, umbrellas, brass pots, fowls, goats, fruits, in fact all the productions of your country side are sent or brought in.  It is the old feudal tribute of the middle ages back again.  During the day the cutcherry or office is crowded with the more respectable villagers, paying in rents and settling accounts.  The noise and bustle are great, but an immense quantity of work is got through.