from remote antiquity has been "doing business in the great waters." Vessels constructed here might be met with from Zanzibar to Aden, and the wild ocean-life gave these people an independence of character, and a wide knowledge of men and thing in other hands. Thirty years ago, a very large proportion of the men of Porbandar had been across the sea, either for purposes of trade, carrying their noted ghee or else, in the service of the State.
This is to show from which the Gandhis sprang.
The Princes of Porbandar, who were knit up with the family, trace back their genealogy to Hanuman, the Monkey-God, which means that the records are ancient. What strange, fantastic, choleric characters these old Hindu Chiefs must have been! Take, for instance, Rana Sahib Vikramajit, the Prince before whom Ootamchand and Karamchand Gandhi stood as Dewan Sahibs. Here is his picture: "Firm-minded, singularly chaste in morals, keen-sighted, often cruel, so independent that he quarrelled with the political agent, so stubborn that he raised a Civil War, so niggardly that his dependents were almost starved, and yet
