noisy when awake—­always chaffing, scolding, scoffing, laughing, ripping, and cursing, and carrying on about something or other.  I never saw such a bird for delivering opinions.  Nothing escapes him; he notices everything that happens, and brings out his opinion about it, particularly if it is a matter that is none of his business.  And it is never a mild opinion, but always violent—­violent and profane—­the presence of ladies does not affect him.  His opinions are not the outcome of reflection, for he never thinks about anything, but heaves out the opinion that is on top in his mind, and which is often an opinion about some quite different thing and does not fit the case.  But that is his way; his main idea is to get out an opinion, and if he stopped to think he would lose chances.

I suppose he has no enemies among men.  The whites and Mohammedans never seemed to molest him; and the Hindoos, because of their religion, never take the life of any creature, but spare even the snakes and tigers and fleas and rats.  If I sat on one end of the balcony, the crows would gather on the railing at the other end and talk about me; and edge closer, little by little, till I could almost reach them; and they would sit there, in the most unabashed way, and talk about my clothes, and my hair, and my complexion, and probable character and vocation and politics, and how I came to be in India, and what I had been doing, and how many days I had got for it, and how I had happened to go unhanged so long, and when would it probably come off, and might there be more of my sort where I came from, and when would they be hanged,—­and so on, and so on, until I could not longer endure the embarrassment of it; then I would shoo them away, and they would circle around in the air a little while, laughing and deriding and mocking, and presently settle on the rail and do it all over again.

They were very sociable when there was anything to eat—­oppressively so.  With a little encouragement they would come in and light on the table and help me eat my breakfast; and once when I was in the other room and they found themselves alone, they carried off everything they could lift; and they were particular to choose things which they could make no use of after they got them.  In India their number is beyond estimate, and their noise is in proportion.  I suppose they cost the country more than the government does; yet that is not a light matter.  Still, they pay; their company pays; it would sadden the land to take their cheerful voice out of it.