venture to hope that this little book will shed some light on the
problem of Indian administration.

Francis H. Skrine.





CHAPTER I

The Pride of Kadampur.

Kadampur is a country village which is destitute of natural
or artificial attractions and quite unknown to fame. Its census
population is barely 1,500, four-fifths of whom are low-caste Hindus,
engaged in cultivation and river-fishing; the rest Mohammadans, who
follow the same avocations but dwell in a Párá (quarter) of their
own. The Bhadralok, or Upper Crust, consists of two Brahman and ten
Kayastha (writer-caste) families. Among the latter group Kumodini
Kanta Basu's took an unquestioned lead. He had amassed a modest
competence as sub-contractor in the Commissariat during the second
Afghan War, and retired to enjoy it in his ancestral village. His
first care was to rebuild the family residence, a congenial task
which occupied five years and made a large hole in his savings. It
slowly grew into a masonry structure divided into two distinct Maháls
(wings)--the first inhabited by men-folk; the second sacred to the
ladies and their attendants. Behind it stood the kitchen; and the
Pujardálán (family temple) occupied a conspicuous place in front,
facing south. The usual range of brick cattle-sheds and servants'