rnment should transfer the lease of the
estate to another, the land of the grove would be transferred with
it. We plant not for worldly or immediate profits, but for the
benefit of our souls in the next world--for the prayers of those who
may derive benefit from our works when we are gone. Our landholders
are good men, and will never resume the lands they have given us; and
if the lands be sold at auction by Government, or transferred to
others, we hope the certificate of the collector will protect us from
his grasp.'[15]

'You like your present Government, do you not?'

'We like it much. There has never been a Government that gave so much
security to life and property; all we want is a little more of public
service, and a little more of trade; but we have no cause to
complain; it is our own fault if we are not happy.'

'But I have been told that the people find the returns from the soil
diminishing, and attribute it to the perjury that takes place in our
courts occasionally.'

'That, sir, is no doubt true; there has been a manifest falling off
in the returns; and people everywhere think that you make too much
use of the Koran and the Ganges water in your courts. God does not
like to hear lies told upon one or other, and we are apt to think
that we are all punished for the sins of those who tell them. May we
ask, sir, what office you hold?'

'It is my office to do the work which God assigns to me in this
world.'

'The work of God, sir, is the greatest of all works, and those are
fortunate who are chosen to do it.'

Their respect for me evidently increased when they took me for a
clergyman. I was dressed in black.

'In the first place, it is my duty to tell you that God does not
punish the innocent for the guilty, and that the perjury in courts
has nothing to do with the diminution of returns from the soil. Where
you apply water and manure, and alternate your crops, you always get
good returns, do you not?'

'Very good returns; but we have had several bad seasons that have
carried away the greater part of our population; but a small portion
of our lands can be irrigated for want of wells, and we had no rain
for two or three years, or hardly any in due season; and it was this
deficiency of rain which the people thought a chastisement from
heaven.'

'But the wells were not dried up, were they?'

'No.'

'And the people whose fields they watered had good returns, and high
prices for produce?'

'Yes, they