314 THE MALABARS — THEIR WAY OF WORKING. 



people are employed both in humble avocations and 

 in the higher walks of life. 



!N"ext, we notice the people known as Malabars. 

 Under this patronymic, not only the natives of the 

 Malabar coast, but those from the shores of the Bay 

 of Bengal, are known ; and consequently, coming 

 from so extended a line of country, there is a vast 

 difference in their appearance : those from one part 

 of the country being small in person, with scarcely 

 any muscular strength ; whilst those from the Ghaut 

 mountains are a tall, muscular race, capable, for 

 Asiatics, of great bodily exertion. All are subdued, 

 and appeared to me as the most abject of any servile 

 people. They are, emphatically, "hewers of wood 

 and drawers of water." Few of them are employed 

 in trade, except as segar makers and sellers. All 

 the manual labor peculiar to shipping is performed 

 by them — caulking, loading, and discharging; and 

 the way they work is a source of pain to an enter- 

 prising spirit. For instance, four or six of them will 

 arrange themselves around a bag of guano, or other 

 package of merchandise, and at a signal from their 

 overseer (who wields a bamboo, with which he very 

 often administers hearty thwacks on the heads of his 

 employees ; and, as they are closely shaven, their 

 crowns possess no protection from the blows), com- 

 mence a monotonous melody, which they continue 

 for several minutes, before touching the bag; then, 

 as many seizing it as can get hold, they swing it 

 on the cart or scales arranged for its reception : 

 during which operation they consume more time in 

 handling one bag than one-third their number of 



