spirit which was supposed to haunt the village. At one time, under
the former government, no one would take a lease of the village on
any terms, and it had become almost entirely deserted, though the
soil was the finest in the whole district. With a view to remove the
whole prejudices of the people, the governor, Goroba Pundit, took the
lease himself at the rent of one thousand rupees a year; and, in the
month of June, went from his residence, twelve miles, with ten of his
own ploughs to superintend the commencement of so _perilous_ an
undertaking.

On reaching the middle of the village, situated on the top of the
little hill, he alighted from his horse, sat down upon a carpet that
had been spread for him under a large and beautiful banyan-tree, and
began to refresh himself with a pipe before going to work in the
fields. As he quaffed his hookah, and railed at the follies of the
men, 'whose absurd superstitions had made them desert so beautiful a
village with so noble a tree in its centre', his eyes fell upon an
enormous black snake, which had coiled round one of its branches
immediately over his head, and seemed as if resolved at once to
pounce down and punish him for his blasphemy. He gave his pipe to his
attendant, mounted his horse, from which the saddle had not yet been
taken, and never pulled rein till he got home. Nothing could ever
induce him to visit this village again, though he was afterwards
employed under me as a native collector; and he has often told me
that he verily believed this was the spirit of the old landlord that
he had unhappily neglected to propitiate before taking possession.

My predecessor in the civil charge of that district, the late Mr.
Lindsay of the Bengal Civil Service, again tried to remove the
prejudices of the people against the occupation and cultivation of
this fine village. It had never been measured, and all the revenue
officers, backed by all the farmers and cultivators of the
neighbourhood, declared that the spirit of the old proprietor would
never allow it to be so. Mr. Lindsay was a good geometrician, and had
long been in the habit of superintending his revenue surveys himself,
and on this occasion be thought himself particularly called upon to
do so. A new measuring cord was made for the occasion, and, with fear
and trembling, all his officers attended him to the first field; but
in measuring it the rope, by some accident, broke. Poor Lindsay was
that morning taken ill and