ame place. Trees appear to be
strictly confined to the suburbs of the city. Very good. If you look
long enough across the sands, while a voice in your ear is telling you
of half-buried cities, old as old Time, and wholly unvisited by Sahibs,
of districts where the white man is unknown, and of the wonders of
far-away Jeysulmir ruled by a half-distraught king, sand-locked and now
smitten by a terrible food and water famine, you will, if it happen that
you are of a sedentary and civilised nature, experience a new
emotion--will be conscious of a great desire to take one of the lobbing
camels and get away into the desert, away from the last touch of To-day,
to meet the Past face to face. Some day a novelist will exploit the
unknown land from the Rann, where the wild ass breeds, northward and
eastward, till he comes to the Indus.

But the officials of Marwar do not call their country a desert. On the
contrary, they administer it very scientifically and raise, as has been
said, about thirty-eight lakhs from it. To come back from the influence
and the possible use of the desert to more prosaic facts. Read quickly a
rough record of things in modern Marwar. The old is drawn in Tod, who
speaks the truth. The Maharaja's right hand in the work of the State is
Maharaj Sir Pertab Singh, Prime Minister A.--D.--C. to the Prince of
Wales, capable of managing the Marwari who intrigues like a--Marwari,
equally capable, as has been seen, of moving in London Society, and
Colonel of a newly raised crack cavalry corps. The Englishman would have
liked to have seen him, but he was away in the desert somewhere, either
marking a boundary or looking after a succession case. Not very long
ago, as the Setts of Ajmir knew well, there was a State debt of fifty
lakhs. This has now been changed into a surplus of three lakhs, and the
revenue is growing. Also, the simple Dacoit who used to enjoy himself
very pleasantly, has been put into a department, and the Thug with him.

Consequently, for the department takes a genuine interest in this form
of _shikar_, and the gaol leg-irons are not too light, dacoities have
been reduced to such an extent that men say "you may send a woman, with
her ornaments upon her, from Sojat to Phalodi, and she will not lose a
nose-ring." Again, and this in a Rajput State is an important matter,
the boundaries of nearly every village in Marwar have been demarcated,
and boundary fights, in which both sides preferred small-arm fire