THE LETTER HOME.
I.
"I and my people will pay the Government's tax, we have our money here, we pay willingly and in full; but the Barushu will not pay, they will fight the Government."
Wrenshaw eyed the speaker angrily and replied: "The Barushu will pay. All will pay the Government tax and all will pay willingly and in full. Who are you to speak of fighting? Take your receipts and go. Tell all you meet by the way that the Barushu are paying the Government tax willingly and in full."
"I will tell them, Morena," said the old native Chief as he rose to go. But there was no conviction in his tone, though his attitude towards the white man was respectful.
Wrenshaw felt anxious. He had heard vague rumours that the Barushu, a large tribe living some twenty miles to the North, would refuse to pay the native tax. This would be awkward. It would have a bad effect on the rest of the tribes. He had been charged with preparing his district for the imposition of the tax. For two years he had worked hard and had then reported that all was in readiness to collect the tax for the first time. This was quite true of all the tribes of which he had control, save, perhaps, of the Barushu. They were a truculent people who had always threatened trouble, although they had never actually given any.
His two Native Commissioners, who were busy receiving tax-money from another Chief, were puzzled to find that there were many more people in this particular community than the census papers showed.
It was Wrenshaw who discovered the curious fraud which was being perpetrated by the Chief. It appeared that having met all demands of him, he deliberately invented names. When asked how it was that all these people had failed to have their names recorded on the census, he suggested that they must have been away from home at the time.