Page:Twenty-one Days in India.djvu/116

104 agencies, from all the native chiefs round about, and on all occasions of visits or return visits, durbars, religious festivals, or public ceremonials, he claims and receives preposterous fees. The Rajas, whose dignity is always exceedingly delicate, stand in great fear of the chuprassies. They believe that on public occasions the chuprassies have sometimes the power of sicklying them o'er with the pale cast of neglect.

English officers who have become de-Europeanised from long residence among natives, or by the frequent performance of petty ceremonial duties of an Oriental hue, employ chuprassies to aggrandise their importance. They always figure on a background of red chuprassies. Such officials are what Lord Lytton calls "White Baboos."

A great Maharaja once told me that it was the tyranny of the Government chuprassies that made him take to drink. He spoke of them as "the Pindarries of modern India." He had a theory that the small pay we gave them accounted for their evil courses. (A chuprassie gets about eight pounds sterling a