Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/50

34. The end of it all is "in the womb of futurity," as Hindu graduates put it. Suffice to say, that it is a very pretty domestic quarrel in embryo, and that when the little dragon is born, it may, like the divine Sanishchar, devour its own family. And that is what the Directors of the Jáffer Ali Mill want.

Poor Surat shared the fate of all the neighbouring districts during the recent famines. Then again the water famine was proving too much for her when Jupiter Pluvius luckily became more favourable and more reasonable. His cloudy majesty is at present (latter part of 1881) exceedingly obliging. He comes and goes to order. The wise men of Surat wonder if the prospects of the khedu could have been brighter even in the golden age. Everything is cheap, especially rice, ghee, and tarkári. The grain-dealers who, two months ago, entered into a secret compact to starve the poor, and who, only the other week, sat with all the insolence of