232 THE DIRECTION OF INDUSTRY 



refuse of his house are stored all round his dwelling- 

 rooms. It is only the house ashes and sweepings 

 which are periodically carried off to the midden, and 

 thence conveyed to the fields. It is only because the 

 habit of living al fresco is so common, and the weaker 

 subjects are swept off by epidemic disease at an early 

 age, that these conditions do not more prejudicially 

 affect the general health of the people. 



* The house of the smaller cultivator or artisan is of 

 a simpler type. Here the walls are of clay and the 

 roof of thatch, which leaks freely in the rains ; and 

 when the fierce summer hot wind blows, a fire once 

 started in such a village spreads with dangerous 

 rapidity, and often leads to loss of life, as the inmates 

 struggle to save their meagre property. Or in the 

 rains the water beats against the fragile walls and the 

 whole structure collapses, often crushing the weak or 

 infirm in the ruin. The wooden seat of the better- 

 class yeoman is here usually replaced by a mud plat- 

 form beside the outer door, on which the master sits 

 in his leisure hour and receives his visitors. 



* It is only in houses of the better class that there is a 

 courtyard. The ordinary dwelling is a single sleeping 

 hut, and outside the hut the housewife does her cook- 

 ing, perhaps under a small thatch, near which the oxen 

 stand, and the cow, buffalo, or goat is tethered and 

 milked. 



'On the whole, the dwelling of the poorer tenant or 

 artisan is cleaner and less exposed to insanitary con- 

 ditions than that of his richer neighbour. The floor 

 and outer cooking-place are carefully plastered ; the 

 cattle are less disagreeably prominent, and the unsub- 

 stantial materials of which the hut consists allow better 

 ventilation. 



' In the plains the best dwelling in the village is that 

 oi ihemahajan, or money-lender. It is usually built 

 of bricks, periodically whitewashed, with an outer 

 veranda, in which the owner sits over his books, meets 



