164 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



and delicious. We picked them off the boughs as we rode 

 slowly along. All were equally luscious, the size of small 

 plums, and not more than a mouthful each, any of them. 

 The animals — bullocks and horses — too were made happy, 

 for we halted while they enjoyed a leisurely feast ; in fact, 

 one and all enjoyed that day to the utmost. Moreover, 

 not to miss such an opportunity, a great basketful was 

 conveyed home, to be turned into a hot-weather drink on 

 arrival. 



Yet, though we made that journey many times, never 

 again did we eat of the mangoes ; nor did we ever like to 

 recall that one occasion ! 



Nothing further was done with the fruit that night, but 

 the next morning the cook, looking rather queer, came and 

 asked us to inspect it. He had begun crushing it to express 

 the juice, but could not go on, for he found it was seething 

 with grubs ! It was a horrifying revelation ; in our greedi- 

 ness we had swallowed the mangoes eagerly, without ques- 

 tion, and almost without looking at them ; but now the 

 bare recollection of that feast was revolting, and it has hardly 

 yet lost the edge of its unpleasantness. 



I suppose I should be guilty of omitting what is, or was, 

 generally considered the most important feature of The 

 Wynad district were I not to make at least honourable 

 mention of the gold found there. 



It has been suggested that this region is the Ophir of the 

 Bible, and gold undoubtedly exists in its river-beds and in the 

 heart of its quartz hills. For ages past certain expert tribes 

 — notably the Kurumbers — have gathered a living, albeit a 

 meagre one, out of the river sand, which they wash exhaus- 

 tively in wooden ' cradles ' shaped like English butchers' 

 baskets, rinsing and swilling, and peering closely as less and 

 less of the worthless sand remains. Hardly a cradleful but 

 rewards them with its particles of red gold, which stay 

 behind in the residue owing to its weight. Nevertheless, it 



