em, but from very sad experience I have found that trusting
to a native is trusting to a very rotten stick. They are certainly not
all bad, but there are just enough exceptions to prove the rule.

One peculiar custom prevailed in this border district of North
Bhaugulpore, which I have not observed elsewhere. At the beginning of
the financial year, when the accounts of the past season had all been
made up and arranged, and the collection of the rents for the new year
was beginning, the planters and Zemindars held what was called the
_Pooneah_. It is customary for all cultivators and tenants to pay a
proportion of their rent in advance. The Pooneah might therefore be
called 'rent-day.' A similar day is set apart for the same purpose in
Tirhoot, called _tousee_ or collections, but it is not attended by the
same ceremonious observances, and quaint customs, as attach to the
Pooneah on the border land.

When every man's account has been made up and checked by the books,
the Pooneah day is fixed on. Invitations are sent to all your
neighbouring friends, who look forward to each other's annual Pooneah
as a great gala day. In North Bhaugulpore and Purneah, nearly all the
planters and English-speaking population belong to old families who
have been born in the district, and have settled and lived there long
before the days of quick communication with home. Their rule among
their dependants is patriarchal. Everyone is known among the natives,
who have seen him since his birth living amongst them, by some pet
name. The old men of the villages remember his father and his father's
father, the younger villagers have had him pointed out to them on
their visits to the factory as 'Willie Baba,' 'Freddy Baba,' or
whatever his boyish name may have been, with the addition of 'Baba,'
which is simply a pet name for a child. These planters know every
village for miles and miles. They know most of the leading men in each
village by name. The villagers know all about them, discuss their
affairs with the utmost freedom, and not a single thing, ever so
trivial, happens in the planter's home but it is known and commented
on in all the villages that lie within the _ilaka_ (jurisdiction) of
the factory.

The hospitality of these planters is unbounded. They are most of them
much liked by all the natives round. I came a 'stranger amongst them,'
and in one sense, and not a flattering sense, they tried 'to take me
in,' but only in one or two instances