precedence. Many were the appeals made to the political agent who had charge of them. He patiently listened to their complaints, and did his best to restore peace.
I visited Tanjore two or three years later with a party from Trichinopoly. We were the guests of the Rajah and Princess, who were marrying a niece of the Rajah to a prince from the north. The ladies were allowed to pass behind the purdah that screened a dais at the end of the durbar hall, and were introduced to the Princess, the bride, and the first wife of the bridegroom, who had come with her two children to see the wedding. This lady excited my interest, and I asked her through an interpreter how she liked her husband's new wife. She replied with a pleasant smile:
'She is all that I could desire, and will be a beloved sister to me.'
Had I put the same question to the bride, something of the same reply would have been given, with a difference in the last sentence:
'She is all that I could wish, and she will be a mother to me and my children.'
The first wife looked about twenty-five years of age, and the bride, a slip of a girl, not more than fifteen, if so much.
It was at Tanjore that the women of the palace who proved unfaithful or obnoxious in the old days were shut in a dark room, into which a male cobra was introduced. It requires a knowledge of the people and of their language to draw from them the stories of their tragedies and their comedies. Questions by casual and curious visitors addressed to the guide fail to elicit information, for they resent inquisitiveness.
'Are there no traditions connected with the palace?'
'No, sir, there are none.'
