The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-04-20
MAHARAJA BAHADUR.
The Richest Landowner in the Prov ince of Bengal, Who Treats His Ten o,,te, Wal

| l.
 ince of Bengal, Who Treats His Ten
 ants We'll.
 The first time I met my friend, the maharaja, he was wearing his blue and
 green. An ultramarine satin tunic over
 grass-green silk trousers is a combina- | ton which arrests the European eye at any time. In this case it enclosed a | little wizen-faced man, with eyes tend ling together, then fitting here and there with an abundance of white eye- ball. Add a little jewelled satin cap a dropping black mustache and pointed yellow leather shoes; with joyful rec ognition-heaven forgive mel cried, An illustration of Aladdinl'
 l repented of my irreverence later.
 He is one of the greatest men in Ben gal, which is little, and deserves to
 be, which is much. He is the largest
 landowner in the province, and his tax
 free rent roll comes to about quar-
 ter of q million a year. Elsewhere in
 India, you must understand, the state
 is the landlord, according to the inn
 memorial custom of India But in Ben
 gal 106 years ago the government made
 what is called the permanent settle
 thanksgiving over the land to zemind-
 ars, who, under the mogul rule, had
 been hereditary land agents and tax
 collectors. Finding the zemindars col
 lecting rent from the cutivators it is
 possible that the Indian government
 mistook them for landlords in the Euro pean sense; at any rate, they were de-
 clared proprietors of the land, subject
 to fixed yearly tax, which was never to vary. It never has varied in the meantime the population of cultivators
 has increased vastly, and their indus try has reclaimed vast tracts of waste land. All this increment has been swal- lowed up by the zemindars, who have repaid the ryot in many cases by confscating his land. The average zemindar does no public service in re- turn for his vastly enhanced income; the government loses revenue which it would otherwise reasonably exact and the ryot loses everything he has It is encouraging, in the face of accusa- tions of perfidy, that our government in India prefers to struggle against de- fcits when it could easily put it's bud get straight by breaking the promise of 106 years ago-an eXpedient that any other government there ever was or could be in India would have flown to years ago.
 The maharaja is zemindar among zemindars-the richest of them all yet no true zemindar at heart The ryots of his estate--until few weeks back his brother s-instead of having the records of their rights suppressed and | destroyed and their fields then let to a higher bidder have found their land lord always munificent in every public | enterprise The new maharaja to | the inventory of him, has | spent a couple of years in the civil ser vice for the benefit of his mind and a 1 couple as half-naked fakir for that | of his soul
 To-day he was to be formally invest ed with the title of Maharaja 13ahadur which means Lord Great -King"-by ! the lieutenant of Bengal. i This town is comparatively near Cal- cutta so that I only had to start he night before. I changed carriages, half-asleep, and the next thing I knew the Ganges.
 The holy Ganges floated great and
  ness of the west it came naked into he untitled gray of dawn. Except he bare train that had brought me Q the ghat and the bare steamer that vas to ferry me across, I could see nothing but chill yellow shore and sand )ank and chill white water. A pill grim issuing from some little shrine, where he had slept, shivered and shook lnee deep in the steram, and his naked white drawers clung to him dankly.
 When you travel in small countries ,ou generally find that you start and rrive at convenient hCurs-catch your rain after a comfortable breakfast md get to your destination in easy ime for dinner. In a country of the ize of India you must take your ar ivals and changes as you find them | 10 that I found the palm-fringed, bask- ng Ganges of my dreams to be a road, noiseess, coloress flood, which he red ball of the sun hardly awoke o more than the clammy lustre of a cad mems eye.
 But the sun clibed undiscouraged. ent the msts and began to warm h. ia into life again. The ceaseless cav { f crows began to half-soothe. half l ladden for another day; the keen nell of dung fires rose into the lighter ir. By the time the melancholy ianges had sunk into it's desert behind { s the land was possible for life, and t 'e were pulling briskly through the <