“On the evening before my departure my bungalow was besieged by a mob of blackguards.  The Native judge came with them.  After a most prodigious quantity of jabbering, of which I could not understand one word, I called the judge, who spoke tolerable English, into my room, and learned from him the nature of the case.  I was, and still am, in doubt as to the truth of the charge.  I have a very poor opinion of my man’s morals, and a very poor opinion also of the veracity of his accusers.  It was, however, so very inconvenient for me to be just then deprived of my servant that I offered to settle the business at my own expense.  Under ordinary circumstances this would have been easy enough, for the Hindoos of the lower castes have no delicacy on these subjects.  The husband would gladly have taken a few rupees, and walked away; but the persecutors of my servant interfered, and insisted that he should be brought to trial in order that they might have the pleasure of smearing him with filth, giving him a flogging, beating kettles before him, and carrying him round on an ass with his face to the tail.

“As the matter could not be accommodated, I begged the Judge to try the case instantly; but the rabble insisted that the trial should not take place for some days.  I argued the matter with them very mildly, and told them that I must go next day, and that, if my servant were detained, guilty or innocent, he must lose his situation.  The gentle and reasoning tone of my expostulations only made them impudent.  They are, in truth, a race so accustomed to be trampled on by the strong that they always consider humanity as a sign of weakness.  The Judge told me that he never heard a gentleman speak such sweet words to the people.  But I was now at an end of my sweet words.  My blood was beginning to boil at the undisguised display of rancorous hatred and shameless injustice.  I sate down, and wrote a line to the Commandant of the station, begging him to give orders that the case might be tried that very evening.  The Court assembled, and continued all night in violent contention.  At last the judge pronounced my servant not guilty.  I did not then know, what I learned some days after, that this respectable magistrate had received twenty rupees on the occasion.

“The husband would now gladly have taken the money which he refused the day before; but I would not give him a farthing.  The rascals who had raised the disturbance were furious.  My servant was to set out at eleven in the morning, and I was to follow at two.  He had scarcely left the door when I heard a noise.  I looked forth, and saw that the gang had pulled him out of his palanquin, torn off his turban, stripped him almost naked, and were, as it seemed, about to pull him to pieces.  I snatched up a sword-stick, and ran into the middle of them.  It was all I could do to force my way to him, and, for a moment, I thought my own person was in danger as well as his.  I supported the