wears an expression of deprecating humility, to which his conscious legs respond in tremulous emotions. His life is a book without pictures. His existence is set to very sad music. The slightest noise within the house is sufficient to set Shadrach pulling like a bell-ringer on New Year’s Eve; but a very-few minutes suffice to plunge him into obese oblivion, and then the punkah; waggles feebly until a shout again electrifies it into ferocity It is always when Shadrach is pulling that the punkah-rope breaks; when more water than usual splashes through the tattie I make sure that the ladle is in Shadrach’s hands. Meshach is of another sort. He is the oldest of the three and when he condescends to the rope, pulls the punkah well. But, as a rule, he allows Shadrach to do his work; for as often as I look out Meshach is tying curled: up under a pink cloth asleep, and Shadrach is pulling. He has established a mastery over his fellows, and by virtue, so I believe, of that pink cloth which voluminously girds his wizened frame, exacts a respect to which his claim is forged. They are the Children of the Lotus, and he their wise Hermogene. In a grievance Meshach is spokesman, but in the case of a disagreement arising, the master’s wrath falls always, somehow, on one of the others. When pay-day comes, Meshach sits familiarly in the verandah with the regular retainers of the household; while Shadrach and Abednego await their wages at a distance, standing foolishly in the sun. Abednego is a man of great physical power, and of something less than average intelligence. He is noisy at times, and may be heard quarrelling with the bheesty who comes to fill the tattle-pots, or grumbling when no one appears to relieve him at the right moment. But alto-
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