16 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



down. An awning was stretched over the pole, fastening, 

 at will, to the sides of the palanquin. This palanquin was 

 made from F.'s design, and the kind became quite a feature 

 of the jail industries. 



Regarding these industries, a few words may here be said. 

 In the jails of India work is provided for convicts, some 

 of whom, when their life sentences (twenty years) have 

 expired, are allowed to marry and settle down in the 

 neighbourhood of the jail, having become attached to their 

 now familiar surroundings. These men — Malays, Burmese, 

 Chinese, together with their odd-featured progeny, thus 

 form small colonies of good and industrious citizens, frater- 

 nising with all around them. 



The prisoners are taught many trades, one being the 

 weaving of a noted cloth for sporting purposes : this is 

 called shikar cloth, and is of a heather-mixture colour (a 

 sort of brown-green leaf tint) so as to be unnoticeable 

 amongst the forest foliage — a most vital point ! It is 

 made of a very strongly- twisted cotton fibre, so tough and 

 untearable as to turn, and resist thorns. And it need be 

 strong, for some of the thorns are small spikes, such as 

 those of the ' wait-a-bit ' — a descriptive name enough — 

 and of many other shrubs. Thickets of these need tough 

 clothes, and a good axe, to get through them at all, there- 

 fore one's servants and the camp staff, peons, etc., are pro- 

 vided with plenty of suitable clothing of this shikar cloth. 

 How the baggage coolies make their way without being 

 scratched and torn to pieces is a wonder, for their modicum 

 of apparel is small protection ; certainly the weight of it 

 counts for nothing at all. My own jungle costume was a 

 Norfolk jacket (with cartridge belt and numerous pockets) 

 and a short skirt, also made of shikar cloth. 



In these jails, besides cloth, they weave table and house- 

 hold linen ; some white, and of coarse texture, and some, of 

 the very daintiest damask imaginable, in colours. Furniture 



