166 REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 



ciative audience. On Wednesday evening Ghupra played 

 Tirhoot and Chumparun at polo and suffered defeat by one 

 goal to none. 



" The fair has been well attended and admirably served by 

 the Tirhoot State Railway, the staff of which had a busy time 

 running several trains full of natives daily, and the heavy traffic 

 should show an appreciable increase in the profits of the line. 

 The horses and ponies brought for sale stood at fair prices. The 

 amusements in the fair were of a varied character, and the 

 usual tamashas of this gorgeous land were relieved of their 

 usual monotony by the presence of an Indian Circus, and the 

 Imperial Theatrical Company who gave the melodrama of ' Laili 

 and Mujnoo ' ( in Hindustani) to a crowded audience, conspicu- 

 ous among which was a dress circle composed of a party 

 of brutal planters chaperoned by that versatile civilian Mr. 

 Grimley. 



" Life unfortunately cannot be all champagne, dancing, 

 racing and lawn tennis, and stern duty necessitated the 

 disposal on Tuesday of the dry monopolists who had nightly 

 or rather morningly made the rafters of the supper room ring 

 with song and mirth, and regularly anticipated the proverbial 

 chanticteer in proclaiming the break of day. But at Wednesday 

 night's supper a grateful reference to the untiring labors of the 

 Honorary Secretary and Mr. Llewhellin and of the fair ladies 

 who double their joys and halve their sorrows,. was made in 

 Messrs. McLeod and Williams' speeches, proposing their' 

 healths. The thunders of applause from fifty stentorian- 

 lungs showed how warmly those labors were appreciated and 

 the "Jolly good fellows, " whose health was uproariously drunk 

 and warmly responded to by one of them, Mr. Forbes, must 

 have felt convinced then that they had quite stolen into the 

 hearts of Behar men, amongst whom they live and have their 

 being. They have fully revived the corpse of the Sonepore 

 week and filled that necessary component of the joys of a 



