work
is done, and gets his orders for the morrow. You are often glad to take
his advice on sowing, reaping, and other operations of the farm. He
knows where the plant will ripen earliest, and where the leaf will be
thickest, and to him you look for satisfaction if any screw gets loose
in the outside farm-work.

He generally accompanies you in your morning ride, shows you your new
lands, consults with you about throwing up exhausted fields, and is
generally a sort of farm-bailiff or confidential land-steward. Where he
is an honest, intelligent, and loyal man, he takes half the care and
work off your shoulders. Such men are however rare, and if not very
closely looked after, they are apt to abuse their position, and often
harass the ryots needlessly, looking more to the feathering of their
own nests than the advancement of your interests.

The only Jemadar I felt I could thoroughly trust, was my first one at
Parewah, an old Rajpoot, called Kassee Rai. He was a fine, ruddy-faced,
white-haired old man, as independent and straightforward an old farmer
as you could meet anywhere, and I never had reason to regret taking his
advice on any matter. I never found him out in a lie, or in a dishonest
or underhand action. Though over seventy years of age he was upright as
a dart. He could not keep up with me when we went out riding over the
fields, but he would be out the whole day over the lands, and was
always the first at his work in the morning and the last to leave off
at night. The ryots all loved him, and would do anything for him; and
when poor old Kassee died, the third year he had been under me, I felt
as if an old friend had gone. I never spoke an angry word to him, and I
never had a fault to find with him.

When the hoeing has been finished in zeraat and zillah, and all the
upturned soil battened down by the _hengha_, the next thing is to
commence the ploughing. Your ploughmen are mostly low caste
men--Doosadhs, Churnars, Moosahurs, Gwallahs, _et hoc genus omne_.
The Indian plough, so like a big misshapen wooden pickaxe, has often
been described. It however turns up the light soft soil very well
considering its pretensions, and those made in the factory workshops
are generally heavier and sharper than the ordinary village plough.
Our bullocks too, being strong and well fed, the ploughing in the
zeraats is generally good.

The ploughing is immediately followed up by the _hengha_, which again
triturates and breaks up t