you 40 rupees for a goat-tog chogheh, or cloak, whose worn condition reduces its value to 12 or less.

"Here, a Bhátiya vendor of dried fruits, sugar, spices, opium and hemp-the tout ensemble fragrant as a druggist's shop in the dog days-dispenses his wares to a knot of Jat matrons and maidens, with a pair of scales and a set of weights which would make justice look her sternest. And there grim Indine Chalybes-blacksmiths, tinmen, braziers and others—are plying their ringing, clanging, clattering, clashing trade in a factitious temperature of 150° Fah., and in close proximity of a fire that would roast a lamb.

"Yet heard through all this din is the higher din of the human voice undivine. Every man deems it his duty on 'Change to roar, rather than to speak-none may be silent-even the eaters of pistachios and the smokers of tobacco must periodically open their throats to swell the clamour floating around them. Except when the crafty Hindús transact business with fingers hidden under a sheet, not a copper pice changes hands without a dozen offers and refusals, an amount of bad language and a display of chapmanship highly curious to the Western observer."

"The typical man (of the Shikarpúri Hindús proper), is a small, lean, miserable-looking wretch, upon whose wrinkled brow and drawn features, piercing black eyes, hook nose, thin lips, stubbly chin and half-shaven cheeks of crumpled parchment, avarice has so impressed her signet, that everyone who sees may read. His dress is a tight little turban, once, but not lately, white, and a waistcloth in a similar predicament; his left shoulder

bears the thread of the twice-born, and a coat of white paint, the caste-mark, decorates his forehead. Behind his ear sticks a long reed pen, and his hand swings a huge rosary-token of piety, forsooth! That man is every inch a Hindu trader. He may own, for aught we know, lakhs of rupees; you see that he never loses an opportunity of adding a farthing to them. He could, perhaps, buy a hill principality with a nation of serfs; yet he cringes to every Highlander who approaches his cloth-shelves, or his little heaps of silver and copper, as though he expected a blow from the freeman's hand. Scarcely a Moslem passes without a muttered execration upon his half-shaven pate, adown whose sides depend long love-locks, and upon the drooping and ragged mustachios covering the orifice which he uses as a mouth. There is a villanous expression in Shylock's eyes, as the fierce fanatics void their loathing upon him; but nothing in the world would make him resent or return slight for slight-nothing but an attempt to steal one of his coppers, or to carry off a pennyworth of cloth.

"This Shikárpúri, having few or no home manufactures, began long ago to devote his energies to banking, and in less than half a century he overspread the greater part of inner Asia. From Turkey to China, from Astrachan to Cape Comorin, there was hardly a considerable commercial town that had not its Shikárpúri or the Shikárpúri's agent."

"The fair sex at Shikárpúr, both Moslem and Hindu, has earned for itself an unenviable reputation; perhaps we can hardly be surprised by the fact. The women are far famed for beauty, the result of mixing with higher

blood-for freedom of manners amounting to absolute "fastness"-and for the grace with which they toss the kheno or ball. These attractions have often proved irresistible to the wild Highlanders that flock to the low country bringing for sale their horses, woollens and dried fruits. You will see more than one half-naked, halfcrazy beggar, who, formerly a thriving trader, has lost his all for the love of some Shikárpúri syren. By these exploits the fair dames have more than once involved their lords in difficult and dangerous scrapes. Moreover, when the young husband that was, returns home old and gray, to find a ready-made family thronging the house, scandals will ensue there are complaints and scoldings; perhaps there is a beating or two before matrimonial peace and quiet are restored. The Hindus of the other Indine cities have often proposed to place their northern brethren under a ban till they teach their better halves better morals." *

Jacobabad and Dadur, the former the head-quarters of the renowned Scinde horse, called after the celebrated General John Jacob, who reclaimed the land from the desert, planted it with trees, and adorned it with flowers and shrubs; but it has become unhealthy and its existence imperilled by rivers in the vicinity changing their beds; a more stable site for the cantonment appears desirable. Dadur is a small town near the mouth of the Bolan Pass and about 65 miles from Jacobabad, and the proper terminus of the long-needed railway from Sukkur.

Hydrábád.-Hydrábád, the old capital of Scinde, lies

* "Scinde Revisited," by Captain Richard Burton, 1877.

on the left bank of the Indus, not far from the ancient Tatta at the top of the delta, where the sailors of Nearchus were so alarmed by the noise of the rushing tide in the narrow creeks, which they mistook for the roar of monsters of the deep, coming to swallow them up. Hyderabad is in communication with Mooltan and other places by means of steamers and native craft on the Indus, and is opposite Kotree, the upper terminus of the Scinde Railway, being a little more than 100 miles from Kurrachee, through which it has access to the sea. Its artisans are noted among other things for their skill in making swords, matchlocks, and various other kinds of arms. It was near this city that Napier's small force routed the numerous and brave Beloochee troops, the famed "barbarian swordsmen " of the Scinde Ameers, in February, 1843, and so brought the whole province under British rule, and enabled him to say-peccavi!

Kurráchee. But the most important city in that part of India is Kurráchee, on the Arabian Sea, near the low range of hills which divides Scinde from Beloochistan. During the last thirty years its growth in size and commercial importance, as the main outlet for the trade of Scinde and the Punjab and adjacent territory has been largely aided by the vast improvements made in its harbour, under the direction of Mr. W. Parkes, consulting engineer for the harbour to the Secretary of State for India. The Scinde Railway connects Kurrachee with Kotree on the Indus, and when the line is extended to Mooltan, Kurrachee, from its geographical position as the European port of India, and its unrivalled accessibility during the prevalence of the south-western monsoons,

will command much of the trade which now finds its way from the Punjab and N.W. Provinces to Calcutta on the one hand and Bombay on the other. Already ships of very large tonnage can enter and lie in its harbour at any part of the year, and more than a thousand vessels, including coasters, now yearly enter the port of Kurráchee.

Having given an outline of the progress of British rule in India, and some description of the chief actors in the crowded arena of politics and war, as well as a glance at the places where great battles had been fought, or revolutions accomplished, it might be well, before turning to the summary of the acts of the several Governors-General, or to the subsequent chapter on the Native States, to remind the reader of the provinces immediately subject to the British crown.

The division of British India into three Presidencies, Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, has been modified by the division into provinces, each ruled by a LieutenantGovernor or Chief Commissioner. Madras and Bombay retain on the whole their former limits, but the overgrown Presidency of Bengal has been broken up into Bengal Proper, Assam, and British Burmah, the NorthWest Provinces, and the Punjab; to which may be added the Central Provinces, formed out of the old Sagur and Nerbudda districts, the lapsed Mahratta State of Nagpore, and part of Bundlechund. Each of these provinces represents a certain phase in the conquering career of the grand old East India Company.