ment on the west coast of Hindustan,
the last remaining relic of the once wide dominions of the Portuguese in
India. Its inhabitants are of the Roman Catholic faith, ever since in
the 16th century St. Francis Xavier, the colleague of Loyola in the
foundation of the Society of Jesus, baptised the Goanese in a mass. Its
once splendid capital is now a miasmatic wreck, its cathedrals and
churches are ruined and roofless, and only a few black nuns remain to
keep alight the sacred fire before a crumbling altar. Of all European
nations the Portuguese have intermingled most freely with the dusky
races over which they held dominion, with the curious result that the
offspring of the cross is darker in hue than the original coloured
population. To-day, the adult males of Goa, such of them as have any
enterprise, emigrate into less dull and dead regions of India, and are
found everywhere as cooks, ship-stewards, messengers, and in similar
menial capacities. They all call themselves Portuguese, and own
high-sounding Portuguese surnames. Domingo de Gonsalvez de Soto will
cook your curry, and Pedro de Guiterraz is content to act as dry nurse
to your wife's babies. The vice of those dusky noblemen is their
addiction to drink.

[Illustration: "JOHN."]

The better sort of these self-expatriated Goanese are eager to serve as
travelling servants, and when you have the luck to chance on a
reasonably sober fellow, no better servant can be found anywhere. Being
a Christian, he has no caste, and has no religious scruples preventing
him from wiping your razor after you have shaved, or from eating his
dinner after your shadow has happened to fall across the table. In
Bombay there is a regular club or society of these Goanese travelling
servants, and when the transient wayfarer lands in that city from the
Peninsular and Oriental mail boat, one of the first things he is advised
to do is to send round to the "Goa Club" and desire the secretary to
send him a travelling servant. The result is a lottery. The man arrives,
mostly a good-looking fellow, tall and slight, of very dark olive
complexion, with smooth glossy hair, large soft eyes, and well-cut
features. He produces a packet of chafed and dingy testimonials of
character from previous employers, all full of commendation, and not one
of which is worth the paper it is written on, because the good-natured
previous employer was too soft of heart to speak his mind on paper. If
by chance a stern and