108 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



old and young. One woman — a pretty, laughing creature, 

 no darker than a European brunette — had her baby on 

 her hip ; putting it down to sprawl in the mud she picked 

 up a piece of fish and held it out carelessly, without looking 

 in the direction of the crocodile, which did not so much as 

 turn its head, so overfed must it have been. At some 

 wondering questions of ours she said that this one was 

 generally there ; she thought it guarded her child, who 

 liked it ! 



1 Were children never taken then ? ' ' Yes, sometimes, 

 and kids and buffalo calves too.' 



I wanted to ask why they lived in such an unspeakable 

 place, but the question did not seem worth putting — it 

 answered itself. They lived here because it was their home, 

 and they had always lived here. According to them they 

 had no choice ; the boatmen, who also lived beside the 

 canal, plying up and down it, said the same. The pretty 

 young woman quite understood my thought as I pointed 

 away to the safer, distant fields, then to the child and its 

 1 guardian ' (?) ; but she only shook her head — such a trim, 

 neat head, shining with cocoanut oil, the hair piled high, 

 and kept together by a single long silver pin — so did the 

 others standing round, all comely-looking, except a few old 

 crones, perfect witches for ugliness ; smiling, too, in quite a 

 superior way at my most silly questionings. They were 

 all of a mind — that was plain — in seeing no reason whatever 

 for leaving the place : ' their people before them had built 

 the houses and planted the gardens — they must have been 

 right in choosing the spot ; their men folk were all engaged 

 in the canal traffic, ' and so on. 



I shook my head too ; for me that crocodile and its fellows 

 were the answer to every argument. I could not but think 

 how easily their houses might be put farther back, how 

 safely they might then live — and said so ; but no, to them 

 everything was in favour of this position. Their final reason 



