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While the Englishman was preparing in his mind a scathing rebuke for an erring municipality that he knew of, a camel swung across the sands, its driver’s jaw and brow bound mummy fashion to guard against the dust. The man was evidently a stranger to the place, for he pulled up and asked the Englishman where the drinking troughs were. He was a gentleman and bore very patiently with the Englishman’s absurd ignorance of his dialect. He had come from some village, with an unpronounceable name, thirty kos away, to see his brother’s son who was sick in the big Hospital. While the camel was drinking, the man talked, lying back on his mount. He knew nothing of Jeypore, except the names of certain Englishmen in it, the men who, he said, had made the Water-works and built the Hospital for his brother’s son’s comfort.

And this is the curious feature of Jeypore; though happily the city is not unique in its peculiarity. When the late Maharaja ascended the throne, more than fifty years ago, it was his royal will and pleasure that Jeypore should advance. Whether he was prompted by love for his subjects, desire for praise, or the magnificent vanity with which Jey Singh must have been so largely dowered, are questions that concern nobody. In the latter years of his reign, he was supplied with Englishmen who made the State their father-land, and identified themselves with its progress as only Englishmen can. Behind them stood the Maharaja ready to spend money with a lavishness that no Supreme Government would dream of; and it would not be too much to say that the two made the State what it is. When Ram Singh died, Madho Singh, his successor, a conservative Hindu, forebore to interfere in any way with the work that was going forward. It is said in the city that he does not overburden himself with the cares of State, the driving power being mainly in the hands of a Bengali, who has everything but the name of Minister. Nor do the Englishmen, it is said in the city, mix themselves with the business of Government; their business being wholly executive.