36 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



They have parted even with pride, and make the most of 

 their circumstances. But all the descendants of great fami- 

 lies, the crocodiles and alligators and even iguanas, are a 

 prey to melancholy. They maintain a dignified spiritless- 

 ness which is affecting. Who can look on that anachronism, 

 an iguana (I mean the large monitor which Europeans in 

 India generally call an iguana, sometimes * guano /) basking, 

 four feet long, on a sunny bank, without 



' Revolving in his altered soul 

 The various turns of chance below " ? 



It may well be sad when man, upstart of yesterday, is 

 watching his opportunity to catch it, that he may eat its 

 flesh and make tomtoms of its skin, tomtoms which for many 

 a night to come shall give birth to the din of that music 

 which "hath charms to soothe the savage breast" and 

 horribly to excruciate the civilized one. The iguana, or 

 gorpud, has been put to other uses, too, and has a name in 

 history. The old tutelary Brahmin of Singhur, if he is still 

 alive, delights to show sahibs the spot where the Marathas 

 tied a strong light rope round the loins of a huge gorpud, 

 and waited until it had clambered up the rocky face of the 

 fortress and wedged itself into some rugged fissure ; then 



