hanging the marvellous nests of the clever little finches-the "bayas "or weaver birds (Ploceus baya).

There are probably not more than forty or fifty huts in the village built of mud and thatched with grass, and nearly all consisting of one room scantily furnished, though sometimes there is an enclosed space in front or behind, in which domestic duties are performed and articles stored, and which affords more seclusion to the women of the household. If the occupant possesses a bullock or bullocks, they are tied up in this enclosure-being fed out of earthenware vessels embedded in raised mounds of earth. The vicinity of the dwelling is far from what the sanitarian approves of, for the general rubbish and sweepings are piled up here for fear of theft, before their removal for use as manure in the fields, but the interior of the hut is usually scrupulously clean despite the fact that it is regularly daubed over with a mixture of mud and water and a little cow-dung. This last is carefully kept for use as fuel, and usually decorates the external walls of the dwelling in patches stuck on to dry in the sun. Landowners, it is true, will often allow the villagers to cut a little wood from their "dhak" jungles, as it is of little use for other purposes, so it is known as "the poor man's tree"; and curiously enough the author found in South Africa that a somewhat similar tree was known as "the Kaffir tree," for apparently very much

the same reason. On one side of the village is the pond-an unsightly excavation, holding stagnant water and affording an excellent breeding - ground for mosquitoes-in which pigs wallow and from which the cattle drink. Its presence is inevitable, since it has been caused by the removal of the earth for the purpose of building and repairing the hutslandlords naturally objecting to their fields being so utilised. Then there are the village wells-some for high caste and some for low caste people,where the women gather to draw water for drinking and other purposes, and to discuss in endless and noisy conversation the doings of their neighbours, &c.; while close by is the council - tree of the community, surrounded by a raised earth platform, where the village elders sit and smoke and talk far into the warm night.

The little village temple is nearly always overshadowed by the sacred peepul- tree (Ficus religiosa). There are usually gods in these trees-demons prefer the tamarind. The former has large leaves hanging loosely on a long stalk, and which move with the least breath of air; so that when all is apparently still they rustle mysteriously, and the movement is attributed to supernatural causes.

There are few shops in Muddunpore. Ruttun Lal squats in a shanty in the principal street, watching over a number of open sacks holding food-stuffs, spices, salt, and sweetmeats,

amid a cloud of hornets and wasps, and with a great brass bell hanging in front of him. Lower down, in a similar shop, iron and brass cooking-pots, big-headed nails, matches, and (recently) awful cigarettes, can be purchased. There are sure to be several potters - very useful servants to the community fashioning out the mud vessels with the aid of the wheel of which the use goes back to remote antiquity. And on the outskirts of the settlement the wheelwright has his workshop, where he builds and repairs the heavy country carts used in the rural areas and drawn by oxen and buffaloesponderous conveyances constructed solely of wood, bamboo, and string, which by yielding survive the jolts and shocks incidental to passage over the rough country tracks. The public buildings consist of the village shrine, with a few trees round it, and the shed in which the children absorb some scraps of elementary education through the medium of an elementary schoolmaster. A little apart from the rest of the dwellings is a small group of wretched tenements, where dwell the very low caste "chamars" the people who flay dead animals for the sake of their skins and live largely on the flesh. None of the streets are paved-the foot goes into some six inches of dust or mud. Buffaloes, goats, cows, and sacred bulls wander allover the site; monkeys swarm unmolested over the houses, roads, and trees; while scores of ownerless pariah-dogs, of all

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shapes and sizes, roam about the village and dispute with their own kind during the day, and with the jackals at night, for a precarious meal of offal and garbage.

This is a purely Hindoo village, and there is no provision for Mahomedan occupation-those who come here for work living with their co-religionists in a hamlet a little way off; but the general description will apply to most little centres of population in Upper India, where the two sects live and work together as they have done for centuries.

Heera Singh's house is the only two-storied residence in Muddunpore, and it also possesses the crowning glory of a tiled roof. It is quadrangular in shape, with a courtyard in the centre, in which is the little altar, with the "tulsee" or holy basil to be placed on the tongue of the dying, and where are also tethered the bullocks; while in a corner of the same enclosure a weedy pony is tied by his head and heels to pegs in the ground under a grass thatch. This is the riding pony of the proprietor, and is of more value than its appearance indicates, on account of its steady amble; and it is surprising how fast and comfortably a rider not given to equestrian feats can get over the ground with an animal trained to this peculiar gait. The members of the family occupy the upper rooms, while the ground floor-much of it consisting of open verandahs-is thronged with poor relations and hangers-on, who loaf about the

place, do odd jobs when required, and roll themselves up in their blankets to sleep when and where they like. The local status and reputation of an Indian gentleman is largely gauged by the extent of his ⚫ toleration and support of the tag-rag and bobtail which infests him; but, apart from this, the people of India are probably the most charitable in the world, and such a thing as State relief is not necessary except in famine times. Poorhouses exist in most towns, but are usually either empty, or Occupied by lepers, blind folk, waifs and strays.

Our Eastern farmer is an industrious and thrifty man, and he and his sons and employés are up at daylight, and having repeated some texts from the Puranas, made oblations to the sun, cleaned their teeth with sticks which they throw away, proceed, muffled up in blankets over their heads and bodies and with nothing round their legs, to the scene of their labours. They will wash themselves all over at a well in the fields, say their prayers, take their food, smoke the pipe of peace, sleep for an hour or two during the great heat of the day, and return home after their work at sunset. they again pray, take the principal meal, and after more smoking, and perchance a chat under the council tree, lie down to rest, wrapped up in their blankets, on a rough bed constructed of wood and laced with stout string.

Then

The little community is a distinct unit in itself, and, VOL. CLXXXVIII.—NO. MCXXXVIII,

differing from conditions in other countries, most of the labourers work for themselves and not for employers-a fact to be borne in mind by oracles on wage-statistics. Lalloo the weaver and his caste - fellows provide most of the clothing and blankets; Buddhoo the sweeper and his class look to the conservancy of the place; Paiga the watchman (a modest servant of the Government, clad in a blue jean coat and red puggri, registrar of births and deaths, and the usual ultimate source of evidence in police cases) rends the air at night with wild howls to keep off marauders; Seetul the water-carrier dispenses that commodity to consumers from his leather bag; and the barber shaves the community, retails gossip, and usually acts as the preliminary go-between among the parents when arrangements are made for alliances between the young folk of the village, before the family priest opens formal negotiations. The Brahman at the shrine attends to their religious wants, while the "Patwari" keeps the revenue accounts and records the changes of tenure of land on curious, portable, and dirty maps.

Life proceeds very quietly in the village, with few excitements beyond the religious festivals, the visits to the neighbouring weekly market, the occasional inspection by a "sahib" connected with one or other of the State departments, or the outbreak of epidemic disease. Literature is at a discount, for few can read, and

Q

the tastes of those who can run mostly towards descriptions of the remarkable deeds and exploits of worthies in the distant past akin to the classic legend of the Great Panjandrum, or else to the counsels and wisdom of religious sages. Politics, art, science, and the doings of the outside world interest them but little, and the stray vernacular newspaper with its editor's views as to proper government, which occasionally reaches the village, is perused and discussed in some bewilderment. Of crime there is very little the circumstances of all are so well known that theft is almost certain of detection; female frailty is attended with more deterrent consequences than the divorce court; and outbreaks of violence between individuals are few and far between. The village council settles very many disputes, and ostracism from the caste is a terrible penalty. Heera Singh, as headman, has a good reputation for maintaining order in his village,-the little unpleasantness about the landmark between him and a neighbouring landowner, which happened about the time that the latter was found clubbed to death in his field, is wellnigh forgotten, though it might have gone hard with him had not Paiga the watchman and another villager fortunately chanced to observe the accused man stretched unconscious on a bed of sickness some twenty miles away, at the exact time of the murder.

Life being what it is, there is of course a dark side to the picture which has been drawn.

There are times when cholera stalks through the little settlement, taking its victims from all indiscriminately: the strong breadwinners, the infants, and the old and feeble. Plague has of late years exacted its human toll; malaria, that curse of India, is an ever-threatening foe; and now and again famine holds the people in its fell grip. But the peasant bows his head, imbued with a spirit of resignation which is a merciful gift to its possessor, and presently the clouds roll by and the sun shines once more.

This is a rough sketch, which must be somewhat modified according to the particular part of the country, of the life and environment of probably at least two-thirds of the population of India-the real India,— the voiceless simple people of which politicians know so little and are perhaps so tempted to ignore. Yet they are very real men and women, and with thoughts and feelings very deeply rooted, and worthy of consideration. They are not believers, it is true, in what Mr A. C. Benson calls "the gospel of push," but then, as that writer goes on to observe, it has got to be proved that one was sent into the world to be "effective," and it is not even certain that a man has fulfilled the higher law of being if he has made a large fortune by business. Heera Singh and his friends have certain consolations,— they seldom suffer from "brainstorms" and the something or other "ego," suicides are rare, and the death registers have no column for "neurasthenia."

WEARYING for sisterly dissensions, sweet in retrospect and absence, and the tonic influence of her stringent father; for the compact little manse, square-built like an oven, adorable (as she thought now) in its contempt for any grace that might detract by a single corner from its stark utility, and for the crowded gardenpatch that never had known the trim propriety of beddedout or coddled flowers unfit without the early aid of glass to bloom in the rigorous airs of the bleak north-country parish whence she got the half of her unconquerable spirit, Pen went home for a fortnight's holiday. For the first time in her life she was secretive; a cloud of doubt in her father's face at one first tentative hint of Sir Andrew Sohaw's eccentric character roused in her all the cautious Schawfield loyalty; it would be impossible to make her father understand.

"The thing is, Has he the grace of God?" asked the clergyman dryly. "I'm not set up with his merriment and pliant manner; the times are sick with men who cannot make up their minds on anything. Easy-osy to themselves as well as others, overlooking others' follies just because they want to palliate the same ones

in themselves, what are they but drifters ? I can stand a strong man hard as whinstone if he has a principle, but I never could thole your drifters, and your jocular jack-easies worst of all!"

"At anyrate he is a good man, and a gentleman," said Pen, surprised, as she said it, at the fervent feeling of defence that brought her back, for the first time in many months, to her high inflection.

"A gentleman-pooh!" said her father, in an acid humour. "Pilate himself was a gentleman, and what a job did he make of it!"

"I mean what I say- & gentle man-and it's not the least of his credentials," said the daughter firmly.

"I have seen gentle men, as ye call them, jump through girrs at a country fair, and making a bigger company laugh at their posturing than Sir Andrew Schaw could entertain with a month of his fantastics. Let us hope that it's nothing worse than a bee in the creature's bonnet, Pen. I'm more taken up with your friend Miss Grant."

Pen gladly turned to this safer and more favourite topic; there was nothing in Norah's character but would meet with his approval.