BEHARILAL 125 



for the flocks of pigeons that continually plundered 

 the stores of the other grain merchants. He had 

 also established a pinjrapole for aged, sickly and 

 ownerless animals of all kinds. To this he required 

 all his tenants to send their bullocks when they 

 became unfit for work, and he sold them new cattle, 

 good and strong, at prices fixed by himself. If any 

 of his old debtors, when reduced to beggary, came 

 to his door for alms, they were never sent away 

 without a handful of rice or a copper coin. He 

 kept a bag of the smallest copper coins always at 

 hand for such purposes. 



Beharilal had a fine house, designed by himself 

 and surrounded by a vast garden stocked with 

 mangoes, guavas, custard apples, oranges and other 

 fruit trees, and made beautiful and fragrant with all 

 manner of flowers. The cool shade drew together 

 birds of many kinds from the dry plains of the sur- 

 rounding country, and it pleased Beharilal to think 

 that they also were recipients of his bounty and that 

 the benefits which he conferred on them would 

 certainly be entered to the credit of his account 

 with Heaven. 



Some he fed, such as the crows, which flocked 

 about the back door, like a convocation of Christian 

 padres, in the morning and afternoon, when the ladies 

 of his family gave out their portion of boiled rice 

 and ghee. The pigeons also came together in 

 hundreds in an open space under the shade of a 

 noble peepul tree, where grain was thrown out for 



