for political reasons. The
Bengali is the Indian who most readily takes to European learning.
Rabindranath Tagore is probably the most widely known member of the race.
They go to Calcutta University and learn a smattering of English and
absorb a certain amount of undigested general knowledge and theory. These
partially educated Bengalis form the Babu class, and many are employed in
the railways. They delight in complicated phraseology, and this coupled
with their accent and seesaw manner of speaking supply the English a
constant source of caricature. As a race they are inclined to be vain and
boastful, and are ever ready to nurse a grievance against the British
Government, feeling that they have been provided with an education but no
means of support. The government felt that it might help to calm them if a
regiment were recruited and sent to Mesopotamia. How they would do in
actual fighting had never been demonstrated up to the time I left the
country, but they take readily to drill, and it was amusing to hear them
ordering each other about in their clipped English. They were used for
garrisoning Baghdad.

After we left Amara we continued our winding course up-stream. A boat
several hours ahead may be seen only a few hundred yards distant across
the desert. The banks are so flat and level that it looks as if the other
vessels were steaming along on land. The Arab river-craft was most
picturesque. At sunset a mahela, bearing down with filled sail, might
have been the model for Maxfield Parrish's _Pirate Ship_. The Arab women
ran along the bank beside us, carrying baskets of eggs and chickens, and
occasionally melons. They were possessed of surprising endurance, and
would accompany us indefinitely, heavily laden as they were. Their robes
trailed in the wind as they jumped ditches, screaming out their wares
without a moment's pause. An Indian of the boat's crew was haggling with a
woman about a chicken. He threw her an eight-anna piece. She picked up the
money but would not hand him the chicken, holding out for her original
price. He jumped ashore, intending to take the chicken. She had a few
yards' start and made the most of it. In and out they chased, over hedge
and ditch, down the bank and up again. Several times he almost had her.
She never for a moment ceased screeching--an operation which seemed to
affect her wind not a particle. At the end of fifteen minutes the Indian
gave up amid the delighted jeers of his comrad