208 RIFLE AND SPEAR WITH THE RAJPOOTS. 



has the usual guests' house. A quarrel with his father 

 has driven him from his home, and he has come here quite 

 uninvited ; nevertheless he is made a welcome guest. 



Hospitality in the East is almost a tenet of 

 religion, and must be rather a burden on stay-at-home 

 Rajas, who do not get their quid pro quo. Not only 

 have the guest and his numerous followers to be 

 entertained, but it is the etiquette— and a custom which 

 has not yet been broken through — to allow the visitor 

 a daily sum of pocket-money. This amount is fixed in 

 proportion to his rank. I believe Feridkot, junior, gets 

 two hundred and fifty rupees a day. Had his father 

 paid a visit, the sum would have been double. And on 

 departure the cost of a special train home is also paid by 

 the host. 



The Maharaja of Dholpur came to pay us a visit in the 

 evening, and seems a quiet, gentlemanlike young man. He 

 dresses in the latest English fashion, with irreproachable 

 boots and breeches, and altogether is better turned out 

 than many of our smart young men. 



Since a boy he has been devoted to hunting, and 

 commenced with a pack of English foxhounds. In a bad- 

 scenting unenclosed country this is poor fun, which he 

 soon found out, and took to the sport of India — pig-sticking. 

 By carefully preserving wild boar he has made Dholpur 

 the Leicestershire of India, and although pig may not be 



