REMINISCENCES 



and we were eventually able to induce him to 

 accompany us, in order that he might show us 

 where the object of our search could be found. 

 He certainly was not a prepossessing animal, but 

 might, did not gratitude for his services prohibit 

 it, be termed a most filthy and highly repulsive 

 one. His large masses of grizzled hair were matted 

 together, a dirty rag round his loins constituted 

 his only apparel if I except his native dirt, where- 

 with, as the olfactory nerves of even a native cook 

 might have testified, he was clad as with a garment, 

 and the conical basket on his back represented 

 his stock in trade. Simple and happy jungle 

 wallah ! Never wilt thou know what it is to pos- 

 sess wants (and possibly duns) far beyond thy 

 means to satisfy ! Never will the gnawings of 

 unrequited love, or the cravings of unsatisfied 

 ambition rack thine innocent soul ! For thee, 

 the world outside the forest may wag as it may, 

 kingdoms may rise and fall, the world be electrified 

 by stirring events which cannot but exercise the 

 soul of every civilised human being who can read 

 a newspaper! India itself might pass into the 

 hands of Russia, nay worse fate still it might 

 even fall into the rapacious clutches of the Ben- 

 galee Baboo, but what wouldst thou know, or 

 care, about all such (to thee) trifles unworthy of 

 knowledge or consideration ? Freedom to dig thy 

 roots, and to collect thy honey in the forest in 

 peace, and a few bamboos and a little thatch to rig 

 up thy simple abode, are all thy needs ; and thy 

 sole anxieties are the avoidance in thy wanderings 



E 49 



