ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 11 



wicked thing, he said that he had seen her fill the kettle at 

 the duck-pond, and that was how he had punished her ! 



One may provide everything in the way of utensils that 

 is thought necessary in an English kitchen, but these people 

 will prefer their own makeshifts. 



One night, when we were dining out, the soup struck us 

 as peculiar ; calling itself ' clear ' it was muddy, and tasted 

 of the ' couch ' already mentioned. Our hostess, Mrs. A., 

 said she had an idea about it, and she left the table telling 

 us not to wait dinner for her. In about a quarter of an 

 hour she returned, saying we should have a new cook by 

 breakfast-time next morning. She had gone to see whether 

 the soup had been strained in the way she guessed, and that 

 directly she entered the kitchen she knew she was right, 

 for a corner of the cook's own wearing apparel was hanging 

 down loose against his leg, wet and wrung looking, with 

 tell-tale scraps of vegetables adhering to it ; evidently that 

 was what he had used as a strainer. The cloth being very 

 thin, and not much of it, the happy thought occurred to her 

 to let him try how he liked its flavour, so she ordered him 

 to rinse it out in warm water, and then stood by while he 

 gulped down the dark decoction ; that he found it anything 

 but nice she could see from his face. 



Going into my own kitchen one day a comical and un- 

 expected sight met my eye. The cook's children were not 

 allowed there, but on this occasion a very small one had 

 been smuggled in, and there it was seated on the uncooked 

 round of beef just brought from market ! The position 

 was no doubt selected as being softer than the floor for its 

 small person, and not too high in case it should topple off. 

 The child was in gala dress, having on a brand new and stiff 

 pink shirt of odd proportions, being very wide for the 

 length ; its hair, not yet black, only silkily brown, was 

 plaited from temple to temple in a continuous line of but 

 a pin's breadth, so few and so fine were the hairs composing 



