His successors were ex-officio Masters of
the Gihon Hunt, as all Inspectors were Whips. For one reason;
Farag, the kennel huntsman, in khaki and puttees, would obey
nothing under the rank of an Excellency, and the hounds would
obey no one but Farag; for another, the best way of estimating
crop returns and revenue was by riding straight to hounds; for a
third, though Judges down the river issued signed and sealed
land-titles to all lawful owners, yet public opinion along the
river never held any such title valid till it had been confirmed,
according to precedent, by the Governor's hunting crop in the
hunting field, above the wilfully neglected earth. True, the
ceremony had been cut down to three mere taps on the shoulder,
but Governors who tried to evade that much found themselves and
their office compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses who
took up their time with lawsuits and, worse still, neglected the
puppies. The older sheikhs, indeed, stood out for the
unmeasurable beatings of the old days--the sharper the
punishment, they argued, the surer the title; but here the hand
of modern progress was against them, and they contented
themselves with telling tales of Ben the first Governor, whom
they called the Father of Waterwheels, and of that heroic age
when men, horses, and hounds were worth following.
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