manufacture but to growth, cultivation, nature of the soil,
    application of manures, and other such departments of the
    business, quite a revolution will set in, and a new era in the
    history of this great industry will be inaugurated.  Less area for
    crop will be required, working expenses will be reduced, a greater
    out-turn, and a more certain crop secured, and all classes,
    planter and ryot alike, will be benefited.

[Illustration:  INDIAN FACTORY PEON.]

[Illustration:  INDIGO PLANTER’S HOUSE.]

CHAPTER V.

Parewah factory.—­A ’Bobbery Pack.’—­Hunt through a village after a cat.—­The pariah dog of India.—­Fate of ’Pincher.’—­Rampore hound.  —­Persian greyhound.—­Caboolee dogs.—­A jackal hunt.—­Incidents of the chase.

After living at Puttihee for two years, I was transferred to another out-factory in the same concern, called Parewah.  There was here a very nice little three-roomed bungalow, with airy verandahs all round.  It was a pleasant change from Puttihee, and the situation was very pretty.  A small stream, almost dry in the hot weather, but a swollen, deep, rapid torrent in the rains, meandered past the factory.  Nearing the bullock-house it suddenly took a sweep to the left in the form of a wide horseshoe, and in this bend or pocket was situated the bungalow, with a pretty terraced garden sloping gently to the stream.  Thus the river was in full view from both the front and the back verandahs.  In front, and close on the bank of the river, stood the kitchen, fowl-house, and offices.  To the right of the compound were the stables, while behind the bungalow, and some distance down the stream, the wheel-house, vats, press-house, boiling-house, cake-house, and workshops were grouped together.  I was but nine miles from the bead-factory, and the same distance from the station of Mooteeharree, while over the river, and but three miles off, I had the factory of Meerpore, with its hospitable manager as my nearest neighbour.  His lands and mine lay contiguous.  In fact some of his villages lay beyond some of mine, and he had to ride through part of my cultivation to reach them.

Not unfrequently we would meet in the zillah of a morning, when we would invariably make for the nearest patch of grass or jungle, and enjoy a hunt together.  In the cool early mornings, when the heavy night dews still lie glittering on the grass, when the cobwebs seem strung with pearls, and faint lines of soft fleecy mist lie in the hollows by the watercourses; long ere the hot, fiery sun has left his crimson bed behind the cold grey horizon, we are out on our favourite horse, the wiry, long-limbed syce or groom trotting along behind us.  The mehter or dog-keeper is also in attendance with a couple of greyhounds in leash, and a motley pack of wicked little terriers frisking and frolicking behind him.  This mongrel collection is known as ‘the Bobbery Pack,’ and forms a certain adjunct to every assistant’s bungalow in the district.  I had one very noble-looking kangaroo hound that I had brought from Australia with me, and my ‘bobbery pack’ of terriers contained canine specimens of all sorts, sizes, and colours.