A RESIDENCE AT JUJA 



clean cut, enthusiastic, good looking, with an air of 

 engaging vitality and optimism. His partner, of 

 his own age, was an insufferable youth. Brought up 

 in some small Scottish valley, his outlook had never 

 widened. Because he wanted to buy four oxen at 

 a cheaper price, he tried desperately to abrogate 

 quarantine regulations. If he had succeeded, he 

 would have made a few rupees, but would have in- 

 troduced disease in his neighbours' herds. This 

 consideration did not affect him. He was much 

 given to sneering at what he could not understand; 

 and therefore, a great deal met with his disapproval. 

 His reading had evidently brought him down only to 

 about the middle sixties; and affairs at that date were 

 to him still burning questions. Thus he would de- 

 claim vehemently over the Alabama claims. 



"I blush with shame," he would cry, **when I 

 think of England's attitude in that matter." 



We pointed out that the dispute had been ami- 

 cably settled by the best minds of the time, had 

 passed between the covers of history, and had given 

 way in immediate importance to several later topics. 



"This vacillating policy," he swept on, '^annoys 

 me. For my part, I should like to see so firm a stand 

 taken on all questions that in any part of the world, 

 whenever a man, and wherever a man, said *I am 

 an Englishman!' everybody else would draw back! " 



403 



