A liUX THROUGH KATHIAWAII. 207 



encourage the visits of uninvited Europeans, or at 

 least of travellers who did not give due previous 

 notice that they were coming. 



Vairawal, we found to our surprise, had one Euro- 

 pean inhabitant, and he was a young Scotchman, 

 established there by some mercantile house. He bore 

 the name of the hero of Aytoun's most celebrated 

 comic ballad. "\Ve travellers (drawing fearful but 

 entirely imaginary pictures of the reasons which had 

 brought him into the land) used to speak of him as 

 " the Phairshon " ; and this phrase having been mis- 

 understood by the captain of the steamer, the latter 

 remarked to us that really the Persian spoke English 

 remarkably well. If you do meet a solitary European 

 in such a place, he is pretty sure to be either a German 

 or a Scotchman. One of our party had a very char- 

 acteristic story of two Scotchmen whom he heard con- 

 versing together under a banian-tree. They were not 

 exactly European loafers, but were railway employes 

 out of work, and were pushing their way a long and 

 dreary one from Ahmedabad towards Agra or Awgry, 

 as they called it. Their remaining funds had been 

 invested in a large stock of clmpdtis, or girdle-cakes ; 

 and though cltapdtis are exceedingly palatable when 

 fresh from the girdle, after being kept a few days 

 they assume the consistency of leather. This the 

 unfortunate Scotchmen soon found ; but instead of 

 damning and cursing the scones, as Englishmen of 

 their class would probably have done, the following 



