And now let us get to business.

First of all, I must go through the village records and documents; after that I will question four or five of the oldest inhabitants, and then we must go over the ground.

The whole question turns, you know, upon whether the irrigation ditch mentioned in the Talookdar's grant is the one that runs across at the foot of the rising ground on his side, or whether it is the one that sweeps round on this side of the grove with the little temple in it.

Unfortunately most of the best land lies between those ditches." For hours Bathurst listened to the statements of the old people of the village, cross questioning them closely, and sparing no efforts to sift the truth from their confused and often contradictory evidence.

Then he spent two hours going over the ground and endeavoring to satisfy himself which of the two ditches was the one named in the village records.