246 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPOUT. 



have been there, and a house and grounds have been 

 retained for it to occupy whenever it might be neces- 

 sary that it should do so. The Nawab contended 

 that so long as he was responsible for the good con- 

 duct of the Kathis, and could move a force into Jait- 

 pore whenever their conduct should require it, he 

 was fulfilling his part of the compact, and had a claim 

 on the Kathis (up to the present date, so much longer 

 as the arrangement remained unchanged, and into 

 eternity, for that matter, if it did remain unchanged) 

 for the support of that body of horse and foot. The 

 chiefs, on the other hand, contended that, as they 

 had never seen the force, and it had never required 

 to be put into use, and was a wholly imaginary thing, 

 they were not bound to pay a farthing towards its 

 support. This was a pretty case as it stood, and it 

 was further complicated by there being a very nice 

 sum of arrears claimed on account of the expense of 

 supporting this body of horse and foot which the 

 Kathis alleged they had never seen and wholly dis- 

 believed in. 



Now it was in the airy residence of this imaginary 

 force of horse and foot that I was established by my 

 friends of Jiinaghar, so it can be imagined whether I 

 was likely to be received with open arms by the 

 Kathi chiefs of Jaitpore. Through all their litigation 

 the Junaghar people had always been careful to retain 

 their premises in Jaitpore, and it was in these I was 

 now established, with the particular and dreadful 



