and on the western, the privy.  It has a big compound all round, on the south-west corner of which there is a tomb of some Shahid, known as the tomb of Phulan Shahid.

At about 5 o’clock in the evening on 26th June, 1913, when Mr. Mitra was out in office, it was suddenly noticed that the southern portion of the privy was on fire.  People ran for rescue and by their timely assistance it was possible to completely extinguish the fire by means of water which they managed to get at the moment, before the fire could do any real damage.  On learning of the fire, the ladies and children, all bewildered, collected in a room, ready to quit the building in case the fire was not checked or took a serious turn.  About a square foot of the thatch was burnt.  Shortly after this another corner of the house was seen burning.  This was in the kitchen.  It was not a continuation of the former fire as the latter had been completely extinguished.  Not even smoke or a spark was left to kindle.  The two places are completely separated from each other being divided by an open court-yard of 30 yards in length and there is no connection between them at all.

There was no fire at the time in the kitchen even, and there were no outsiders besides the ladies and children who were shut up in a room.  This too was extinguished without any damage having been done.  By this time Mr. Mitra and his several friends turned up on getting the news of the fire in his house.  I was one of them.  In short the fire broke out in the house at seven different places within an hour or an hour and a half; all these places situated so apart from one another that one was astonished to find how it broke out one after the other without any visible sign of the possibility of a fire from outside.  We were all at a loss to account for the breaking out of the fire.  To all appearance it broke out each time spontaneously and mysteriously.  The fact that fire broke out so often as seven times within the short space of about an hour and a half, each time at a different place without doing any perceptible damage to the thatching of the bungalow or to any other article of the occupant of the house, is a mystery which remains to be solved.  After the last breaking out, it was decided that the house must be vacated at once.  Mr. Mitra and his family consequently removed to another house of Padri Ahmad Shah about 200 yards distant therefrom.  To the great astonishment of all nothing happened after the ‘vacation’ of the house for the whole night.  Next morning Mr. Mitra came with his sister to have his morning meals prepared there, thinking that there was no fire during the night.  To his great curiosity he found that the house was ablaze within 10 or 15 minutes of his arrival.  They removed at once and everything was again all right.  A day or two after he removed to a pucca house within the town, not easy to catch fire.  After settling his family in the new house Mr. Mitra went to