10 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



for breakfast ; who sits before a flat, hollowed stone with 

 another — a round one — in her hands, grinding the fresh- 

 mint chutneys, and the curry powders and paste. What 

 can she not put into them ? unless, as is very likely the case, 

 she is grinding her own at the same time and requires 

 ingredients for them also. From the least to the greatest, 

 every one is at the mercy of the tunny-ketch. Such work 

 as she does is infra dig. for a man ; the cook would scorn it. 

 Yet, let a master be in difficulties, say he is an ill-paid 

 bachelor, or a man trying to send home money to wife and 

 children, living as best he can, managing on a tenth of his 

 pay with one servant, and everything will be done for him ; 

 his curry will be spicy, his rice white, with never a stone 

 in it ; he knows not how, he does not ask. The truth is these 

 people are contradictions, but they win respect, in some 

 cases even love. Not all, however. 



One morning when we were staying at a friend's house 

 the tea was very nasty, with what is called ' couch ' about 

 it, that is a twang, half-taste, half-smell ; it was sent away 

 that fresh might be made, but that proved just as bad, quite 

 unaccountably. The next minute some commotion was 

 heard, and the tunny-ketch came running from the back 

 regions, holding her hands behind her, and crying out that 

 she had been burnt by ' chinna putti Cyril Doray ' (little 

 Master Cyril), who had taken a piece of flaming wood off 

 the fire and laid it across her when she was stooping down. 

 As she wore her ' cloth,' 1 like all of her kind, amply folded 

 but trained smoothly round her person, it had the better 

 chance of being singed through and through, which it cer- 

 tainly was. Cyril, the child of the house — a five-year-old 

 of much directness of purpose (which in a general way we 

 found very engaging) — stood by with an exultant, not 

 repentant, air. Being asked why he had done such a 



1 A native woman's dress consists of one long length of coloured 

 muslin. 



