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JEYPORE
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teeth." "Mine is first-class family hotel," roared the solferino villain. "Oh, his is dirty, rotten hotel," wailed the other. "Please come my house, please come my house, I am poor man," bawled the bangla-keeper, as the big solferino banged the carriage-door on his trophies and climbed the box to guard us from being kidnapped on the way.

The dining-room of the Kaiser-i-Hind was in the cellar-like ground floor, and an outside staircase led to the cement terrace or roof on which the bedrooms opened—lofty rooms, with many doors and long windows to admit air in the hot weather when the hotel is empty, and fireplaces the size of a crumb-tray to warm them on the frosty nights when the place is filled with shivering, sneezing tourists. Two dozen times the solferino one asked me if I wanted a guide for Jeypore, and as many times he received the decisive "No." Two babus were breakfasting in the general room, quite like Europeans, and speedily opened conversation. No discouragements could check their volubility, and we watched to see what game was premeditated. "I am not common man," said the larger turban. "I am prince. I am Nawab of Behar. Go! fetch me those letters from the duke," he said to his companion, who returned with a greasy note, worn like a beggar's certificate. The secretary of the Duke of Connaught had written to "His Highness Mer Abdul-asal Alum Khan, Nawab of Behar," to express condolences on the death of the Nawab's wife. Then this doubtful Nawab, eating in the public room of an inn with casteless unbelievers, told us that his family owned the Espla-