ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 161 



strung with any number of small implements, as well as 

 grotesque charms, efficacious either in weaving spells round 

 other people or averting theirs from the wearer. Besides 

 these double-edged potencies, there was quite an Olympus 

 of gods and goddesses — his ' little pieties,' to use a friend's 

 expression. Some of them were of stone intricately carved, 

 others only of burnt clay ; some all head, and others all 

 stomach ; of the size only of a baby's finger, yet none so 

 tiny but that it could be hideous to an unbiassed eye. 

 Spurious ones of the kind can be bought anywhere for a 

 few pice, demand regulating supply, but that these were out 

 of reach I knew ; nor was it well to talk of them in the 

 hearing of the deities — that, too, I knew, having been 

 warned against doing so. But the chain itself was not so 

 fenced about. We asked the man how he came by it, 

 because I said I should like to get one exactly the same. 

 The quick smile beamed all over his face, and his eyes shone 

 like agates, as he declared with pride that he could make 

 one for the Dursani that very day. Had he not made his 

 own ? That he was not a mere blacksmith, but a silver- 

 smith as well. For a man to be both was a novel idea ; 

 the combination seemed incongruous ; but the view taken 

 here was that metals were akin : if you understood one, you 

 understood all. 



As my chain was to be a facsimile of his, the price could 

 be ascertained then and there, and in a convincingly just 

 fashion — simply its own weight in rupees plus the value of 

 the working it, at so much to the rupee, according to a fixed 

 scale. Thus two annas was the lowest rate ; for that one 

 could expect only the very plainest work of all, such as in 

 bangles without heads or knobs ; if with these and orna- 

 mented, then the price would be much higher ; but one 

 would always know exactly how much one would have to 

 pay. The rate for this wirework chain was eight annas, 

 so, as sixteen annas go to a rupee, the cost was soon arrived 



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