carpenters, and blacksmiths of this little colony were
working in our camp every day, while we remained in the vicinity, and
better workmen I have never seen in India; but they would all insist
upon going to divine service at the prescribed hours. They had built
a splendid _pucka_[13] dwelling-house for their bishop, and a still
more splendid church, and formed for him the finest garden I have
seen in India, surrounded with a good wall, and provided with
admirable pucka wells. The native Christian servants who attended at
the old bishop's table, taught by himself, spoke Latin to him; but he
was become very feeble, and spoke himself a mixture of Latin,
Italian, his native tongue, and Hindustani. We used to have him at
our messes, and take as much care of him as of an infant, for he was
become almost as frail as one. The joy and the excitement of being
once more among Europeans, and treated by them with so much reverence
in the midst of his flock, were perhaps too much for him, for he
sickened and died soon after.

The Raja died soon after him, and in all probability the flock has
disappeared. No Europeans except a few indigo planters of the
neighbourhood had ever before known or heard of this colony; and they
seemed to consider them only as a set of great scoundrels, who had
better carts and bullocks than anybody else in the country, which
they refused to let out at the same rate as the others, and which
they (the indigo lords) were not permitted to seize and employ at
discretion. Roman Catholics have a greater facility in making
converts in India than Protestants, from having so much more in their
form of worship to win the affections through the medium of the
imagination.[14]

Notes:

1. Men are occasionally exempted from the necessity of becoming a
Brahman first. Men of low caste, if they die at particular places,
where it is the interest of the Brahmans to invite rich men to die,
are promised absorption into the great 'Brahma' at once. Immense
numbers of wealthy men go every year from the most distant parts of
India to die at Benares, where they spend large sums of money among
the Brahmans. It is by their means that this, the second city in
India, is supported. [W. H. S.] Bombay is now the second city in
India, so far as population is concerned.

2. Brahma, with the short vowel, is the eternal Essence or Spirit;
Brahma, with the long vowel, is 'the primaeval male god, the first
personal product of the purely