about the yearnings and wishes that every immortal soul at periods has, and he will simply tell you ‘Khoda jane, hum greel admi,’ i.e.  ‘God knows; I am only a poor man!’ There they take refuge always when you ask them anything puzzling.  If you are rating them for a fault, asking them to perform a complicated task, or inquiring your way in a strange neighbourhood, the first answer you get will, ten to one, be ‘Hum greel admi.’  It is said almost instinctively, and no doubt in many cases is the refuge of simple disinclination to think the matter out.  Pure laziness suggests it.  It is too much trouble to frame an answer, or give the desired information, and the ‘greel admi’ comes naturally to the lip.  It is often deprecatory, meaning ’I am ignorant and uninformed,’ you must not expect too ’much from a poor, rude, uncultivated man like me.’  It is often, also, a delicate mode of flattery, which is truly oriental, implying, and often conveying in a tone, a look, a gesture, that though the speaker is ‘greel,’ poor, humble, despised, it is only by contrast to you, the questioner, who are mighty, exalted, and powerful.  For downright fawning obsequiousness, or delicate, implied, fine-strung, subtle flattery, I will back a Hindoo sycophant against the courtier or place-hunter of every other nation.  It is very annoying at times, if you are in a hurry, and particularly want a direct answer to a plain question, to hear the old old story, ‘I am a poor man,’ but there is nothing for it but patience.  You must ask again plainly and kindly.  The poorer classes are easily flurried; they will always give what information they have if kindly spoken to, but you must not fluster them.  You must rouse their minds to think, and let them fairly grasp the purport of your inquiry, for they are very suspicious, often pondering over your object, carefully considering all the pros and cons as to your motive, inclination, or your position.  Many try to give an answer that they think would be pleasing to you.  If they think you are weary and tired, and you ask your distance from the place you may be wishing to reach, they will ridiculously underestimate the length of road.  A man may have all the cardinal virtues, but if they think you do not like him, and you ask his character, they will paint him to you blacker than Satan himself.  It is very hard to get the plain, unvarnished truth from a Hindoo.  Many, indeed, are almost incapable of giving an intelligent answer to any question that does not nearly concern their own private and purely personal interests.  They have a sordid, grubbing, vegetating life, many of them indeed are but little above the brute creation.  They have no idea beyond the supply of the mere animal wants of the moment.  The future never troubles them.  They live their hard, unlovely lives, and experience no pleasures and no surprises.  They have few regrets; their minds are mere blanks, and life is one long continued struggle with nature for bare subsistence.  What wonder