t I sold my old buggy horse for
two thousand rupees to grandmamma, with many mutual expressions of
good-will--through a curtain--and I have not been paid to this day.
But since then the horse-market has been ruined in the native states
by these imperial _melas_[J] and durbars. A poor Political has no
chance against these Government of India people, who come down with
strings of three-legged horses, and--no, I won't say they sell them to
the chiefs--I should be having a commission of my _khidmatgars_[K]
sitting upon me, like poor Har Sahai, who was beaten by Mr. Saunders,
and Malhar Rao Gaikwar, who fancied his Resident was going to poison
him.

I like to see a Political up at Simla wooing that hoyden Promotion in
her own sequestered bower. It is good to see Hercules toiling at the
feet of Omphale. It is good to see Pistol fed upon leeks by
Under-Secretaries and women. How simple he is! How boyish he can be,
and yet how intense! He will play leap frog at Annandale; he will
paddle about in the stream below the water-falls without shoes and
stockings; but if you allude in the most distant way to rajas or
durbars, he lets down his face a couple of holes and talks like a
weather prophet. He will be so interesting that you can hardly bear
it; so interesting that you will feel sorry he is not talking to the
Governor-General up at Peterhoff.

[But I feel that an Agent to the Governor-General is looking over my
shoulder, so perhaps I had better stop; though I know two or three
things about Politicals.]--SIR ALI BABA, K.C.B.[L]

No. IX

WITH THE COLLECTOR

[October 4, 1879.]

Was it not the Bishop of Bombay who said that man was an automaton
plus the mirror of consciousness? The Government of every Indian
province is an automaton plus the mirror of consciousness. The
Secretariat is consciousness, and the Collectors form the automaton.
The Collector works, and the Secretariat observes and registers.

To the people of India the Collector is the Imperial Government. He
watches over their welfare in the many facets which reflect our
civilisation. He establishes schools and dispensaries [for their
children], gaols [for their troublesome relations and neighbours], and
courts of justice [for the benefit of their brothers who can talk and
write]. He levies the rent of their fields, he fixes the tariff, and
he nominates to every appointment, from that of road-sweeper or
constable, to the great blood-sucking officer