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TRICHINOPOLI AND TANJORE
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there under the mandapan, the riches of India laid out on a dirty cotton table-cover!—the wise elephants a contrast in good manners to the horde of noisy and excited Brahmans. Although it had required the intervention of three officials to permit us to see the jewels, and each chest is locked with five keys and sealed with five seals of that many Brahman keepers, thefts are frequent, and fifty thousand rupees' worth of jewels vanished at one time. The police kept their eyes on each of the priestly band, the elephants blinked and watched too; and when we had offered our rupees to clean the jewels, the Brahmans set up an approving shout, dropped garlands of marigolds around our necks, and presented us with fragrant lemons. We rose to go, and the most gaudily painted and blackest old Brahman of them all pushed forward, shouting: "I want my photograph now. You have it in that box. You took it an hour ago. I am Venketerama lyenzar, revenue inspector of Srirangam. Send it to me by the post." And with the elephants trumpeting and nosing for two-anna pieces in the dust, we drove away to the silk and silver and muslin shops of "Trichi," as one soon learns to call it. There the tahsildar spied our brougham, and, descending from his bullock-cart, paid us a visit at the silk merchant's shop front— the courteous, gracious old tahsildar, a fine product of two civilizations.

Samuel Daniel, our guide with the tobacco factory attached, was radiant with the success of the whole morning. Elated from his converse with Brahmans, doctors, and tahsildar, he dropped so