246 



Asiatic juggles, I gave it very little attention; but afterwards at 

 Baroche I attended minutely to an ordeal in which myself and 

 Harrabhy were more immediately concerned. 



On removing from our country house at Baroche to Surat, we 

 packed up most of our things, and placed them in the front veranda, 

 where the peons slept on their moveable beds. An iron plate- 

 chest was for greater security deposited in an inner room near 

 that where the family slept: we saw it there when we retired 

 to rest, and in the morning it was missing. The contents being- 

 valuable, and the time of our departure near, we used every means 

 to discover so extraordinary a robbery, in which, from the weight 

 of the chest, three or four persons must have been concerned. Pro- 

 mises and threatenings were of no avail, the delinquents were con- 

 cealed. I suspected an individual, but not knowing how he could 

 have accomplished the robbery, I was silent. The public officers 

 belonging to the court of Adawlet not being able to discover the 

 robber, at the earnest solicitations of all our servants, Hindoos, 

 Mahomedans, and Parsees, we had recourse to divination by balls in 

 the water; our own names were included with the rest. On 

 forming a circle round the vase, I observed the man I suspected 

 to change colour, and become a little agitated: no other person 

 remarked it until on the balls being immersed in water one only 

 rose to the surface; his confusion was then evident; still more so, 

 when on opening the ball it contained the name of Harrabhy. 

 He had lived with us several years as head gardener, without our 

 having any reason to suspect his honesty: he positively denied 

 the robbery, and we had no other proof than the ordeal, which, 

 although fully satisfactory to all the Indians, was not so to us. They 



