SEDITION IN POONAH 



out of its coffin, but an enthusiastic souvenir-hunting white 

 man having sacrilegiously purloined one of its big toes, 

 the authorities no longer permit the body to be shown 

 outside its case. I am writing of Goa and Mormugoa as 

 I saw them some ten or more years ago, and they are 

 probably unchanged to this day, though I fear my de- 

 scription falls far short of what it should be. But these 

 places are so quaint, and full of interest from so many 

 points of view, that it would require the skill of an expert 



guide-book writer to describe them. 



****** 



After my term of service at Dharwar, I was posted to 

 the district of Poonah, one of the nicest in the Presidency, 

 but from a police point of view, a most troublesome and 

 responsible charge, for Poonah at that time was a hot-bed 

 of sedition, the result, in a great measure, of the lenient 

 treatment accorded to the promoters and instigators of 

 the movement, years before, in Nasik, Benares and 

 Calcutta. 



But I have already referred to this subject in a previous 

 chapter, and the least said now about those troublous 

 days the better, for in the realization of her great oppor- 

 tunity for showing her true sentiments to the Empire, 

 India has furnished evidence so complete and incontestable 

 of her loyalty and devotion, that it is now difficult to 

 realize that unrest and agitation ever had any existence in 

 that country. War, as our enemies have discovered to 

 their cost, so far from alienating India from the Empire, 

 as they had hoped, has welded them so closely together 

 that, for the first time in her history, the soldiers of the 

 Empire, white and black alike, are fighting side by side 

 against their common European foes. In fact, what war 

 has effected in a moment, so to speak, a century of peace 

 might have failed to bring about. 



As Police Officer of Poonah during a period when unrest 

 and sedition were so ripe in this city and district, my time 

 was so fully occupied with my duties, that I had no leisure 

 for sport, not that there was much to be had, a few black- 

 buck and small game being all that was obtainable in this 

 district. 



From Poonah I was transferred to Surat, an interesting 



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