It was a blend of unconvincing travel and some rather free narrative: a piece of sheer hackwork to meet a certain market.

For seven years, first at Lahore and later at Allahabad, he was busy with the usual hackwork of a small newspaper.

A few German friends occasionally gave a little pecuniary aid, but the only regular source of income was musical hackwork for the publisher Schlesinger, who gladly availed himself of Wagner's skill in having him make vocal scores of operas, or arrange popular melodies for the piano and other instruments.