ny respectability would feel himself
dishonoured were the females of his family to be _seen_, much less
_touched_, while passing along the road in their palanquin or covered
carnage; and to save himself from such dishonour he was everywhere
obliged to pay these custom-house officers. Many articles that pass
in transit through India would suffer much damage from being opened
along the road at any season, and be liable to be spoiled altogether
during that of the rains; and these harpies could always make the
merchants open them, unless they paid liberally for their
forbearance. Articles were rated to the duty according to their
value; and articles of the same weight were often, of course, of very
different values. These officers could always pretend that packages
liable to injury from exposure contained within them, among the
articles set forth in the invoice, others of greater value in
proportion to their weight. Men who carried pearls, jewels, and other
articles very valuable compared with their bulk, always depended for
their security from robbers and thieves on their concealment; and
there was nothing which they dreaded so much as the insolence and
rapacity of these custom-house officers, who made them pay large
bribes, or exposed their goods. Gangs of thieves had members in
disguise at such stations, who were soon able to discover through the
insolence of the officers, and the fears and entreaties of the
merchants, whether they had anything worth taking or not.

A party of thieves from Datiya, in 1882, followed Lord William
Bentinck's camp to the bank of the river Jumna near Mathura, where
they found a poor merchant humbly entreating an insolent custom-house
officer not to insist upon his showing the contents of the little box
he carried in his carriage, lest it might attract the attention of
thieves, who were always to be found among the followers of such a
camp, and offering to give him anything reasonable for his
forbearance. Nothing he could be got to offer would satisfy the
rapacity of the man; the box was taken out and opened. It contained
jewels which the poor man hoped to sell to advantage among the
European ladies and gentlemen of the Governor-General's suite. He
replaced his box in his carriage; but in half an hour it was
travelling post-haste to Datiya, by relays of thieves who had been
posted along the road for such occasions. They quarrelled about the
division; swords were drawn, and wounds inflicted. O