m
with contempt and amazement, exactly as the wanderer himself had once
looked upon a Globe-trotter, who had put to him the same impertinent
query. And--but here the Englishman may be wrong--it seemed to him that
in one respect their lives were a good deal more restful and
concentrated than those of their brethren under the British Government.
There was no talk of shiftings and transfers and promotions, stretching
across a Province and a half, and no man said anything about Simla. To
one who has hitherto believed that Simla is the hub of the Empire, it is
disconcerting to hear: "Oh, Simla! That's where you Bengalis go. We
haven't anything to do with Simla down here." And no more they have.
Their talk and their interests run in the boundaries of the States they
serve, and, most striking of all, the gossipy element seems to be cut
altogether. It is a backwater of the river of Anglo-Indian life--or is
it the main current, the broad stream that supplies the motive power,
and is the other life only the noisy ripple on the surface? You who
have lived, not merely looked at, both lives, decide. Much can be learnt
from the talk of the caste, many curious, many amusing, and some
startling things. One hears stories of men who take a poor, impoverished
State as a man takes a wife, "for better or worse," and, moved by some
incomprehensible ideal of virtue, consecrate--that is not too big a
word--consecrate their lives to that State in all single-heartedness and
purity. Such men are few, but they exist to-day, and their names are
great in lands where no Englishman travels. Again the listener hears
tales of grizzled diplomats of Rajputana--Machiavellis who have hoisted
a powerful intriguer with his own intrigue, and bested priestly cunning,
and the guile of the Oswal, simply that the way might be clear for some
scheme which should put money into a tottering Treasury, or lighten the
taxation of a few hundred thousand men--or both; for this can be done.
One tithe of that force spent on their own personal advancement would
have carried such men very far.

Truly the Hat-marked Caste are a strange people. They are so few and so
lonely and so strong. They can sit down in one place for years, and see
the works of their hands and the promptings of their brain grow to
actual and beneficent life, bringing good to thousands. Less fettered
than the direct servant of the Indian Government, and working over a
much vaster charge, they seem a bigger