on by your servants and _omlah_, the omlah being the head men in the
office. It is a fine time for them. Wooden shoes, umbrellas, brass
pots, fowls, goats, fruits, in fact all the productions of your
country side are sent or brought in. It is the old feudal tribute of
the middle ages back again. During the day the _cutcherry_ or office
is crowded with the more respectable villagers, paying in rents and
settling accounts. The noise and bustle are great, but an immense
quantity of work is got through.

The village putwarries and head men are all there with their
voluminous accounts. Your rent-collector, called a _tehseeldar_, has
been busy in the villages with the tenants and putwarries, collecting
rent for the great Pooneah day. There is a constant chink of money, a
busy hum, a scratching of innumerable pens. Under every tree, 'neath
the shade of every hut, busy groups are squatted round some acute
accountant. Totals are being totted up on all hands. From greasy
recesses in the waistband a dirty bundle is slowly pulled forth, and
the desired sum reluctantly counted out.

From early morn till dewy eve this work goes on, and you judge your
Pooneah to have been a good or bad one by the amount you are able to
collect. Peons, with their brass badges flashing in the sun, and their
red puggrees shewing off their bronzed faces and black whiskers, are
despatched in all directions for defaulters. There is a constant going
to and fro, a hurrying and bustling in the crowd, a hum as of a
distant fair pervading the place, and by evening the total of the
day's collections is added up, and while the sahib and his friends
take their sherry and bitters, the omlah and servants retire to wash
and feast, and prepare for the night's festivities.