ould perish. The king,
throwing himself on the ground, implored the prophet's pardon. But his
curse had worked its fulfilment already. All that he could do to
stop the mischief consisted in a solemn promise not to let the king's
descendants disappear completely from the earth. However, the Patars
soon lost their throne and their power. Since then they have had to
"live by their pens," in the employment of many successive governments,
to exchange their name of Patars for Patans, and to lead a humbler life
than many of their late subjects. Happily for our talkative Amphitryon,
his forefathers became Brahmans, that is to say "went through the golden
cow."

The expression "to live by their pens" alludes, as we learned later on,
to the fact of the Patans occupying all the small Government posts in
the Bombay Presidency, and so being dangerous rivals of the Bengali
Babus since the time of British rule. In Bombay the Patan clerks reach
the considerable figure of five thousand. Their complexion is darker
than the complexion of Konkan Brahmans, but they are handsomer and
brighter. As to the mysterious expression, "went through the golden
cow," it illustrates a very curious custom. The Kshatriyas, and even
the much-despised Shudras, may become a sort of left-hand Brahmans. This
metamorphosis depends on the will of the real Brahmans, who may, if they
like, sell this right for several hundreds or thousands of cows. When
the gift is accomplished, a model cow, made of pure gold, is erected
and made sacred by the performance of some mystical ceremonies. The
candidate must now crawl through her hollow body three times, and thus
is transformed into a Brahman. The present Maharaja of Travankor, and
even the great Raja of Benares, who died recently, were both Shudras who
acquired their rights in this manner. We received all this information
and a notion of the legendary Patar chronicle from our obliging host.

Having announced that we must now get ready for dinner, he disappeared
in the company of all the gentlemen of our party. Being left to
ourselves, Miss X---- and I decided to have a good look at the house
whilst it was empty. The Babu, being a downright, modern Bengali, had
no respect for the religious preparations for dinner, and chose to
accompany us, proposing to explain to us all that we should otherwise
fail to understand.

The Prabhu brothers always live together, but every married couple have
separate rooms and servants of