India generation after generation, as
dolphins follow in line across the open sea.

Let us take a small and obscure case. There has been at least one
representative of the Devonshire Chinns in or near Central India since
the days of Lieutenant-Fireworker Humphrey Chinn, of the Bombay European
Regiment, who assisted at the capture of Seringapatam in 1799. Alfred
Ellis Chinn, Humphrey's younger brother, commanded a regiment of Bombay
grenadiers from 1804 to 1813, when he saw some mixed fighting; and in
1834 John Chinn of the same family--we will call him John Chinn the
First--came to light as a level-headed administrator in time of trouble
at a place called Mundesur. He died young, but left his mark on the new
country, and the Honourable the Board of Directors of the Honourable
the East India Company embodied his virtues in a stately resolution, and
paid for the expenses of his tomb among the Satpura hills.

He was succeeded by his son, Lionel Chinn, who left the little old
Devonshire home just in time to be severely wounded in the Mutiny. He
spent his working life within a hundred and fifty miles of John Chinn's
grave, and rose to the command of a regiment of small, wild hill-men,
most of whom had known his father. His son John was born in the small
thatched-roofed, mud-walled cantonment, which is even to-day eighty
miles from the nearest railway, in the heart of a scrubby, tigerish
country. Colonel Lionel Chinn served thirty years and retired. In the
Canal his steamer passed the outward-bound troop-ship, carrying his son
eastward to the family duty.

The Chinns are luckier than most folk, because they know exactly what
they must do. A clever Chinn passes for the Bombay Civil Service, and
gets away to Central India, where everybody is glad to see him. A dull
Chinn enters the Police Department or the Woods and Forest, and sooner
or later he, too, appears in Central India, and that is what gave rise
to the saying, "Central India is inhabited by Bhils, Mairs, and Chinns,
all very much alike." The breed is small-boned, dark, and silent, and
the stupidest of them are good shots. John Chinn the Second was rather
clever, but as the eldest son he entered the army, according to Chinn
tradition. His duty was to abide in his father's regiment for the term
of his natural life, though the corps was one which most men would have
paid heavily to avoid. They were irregulars, small, dark, and blackish,
clothed in rifle-green with blac