26 FOOD OF OOPLIGAS. 



three hundred years old. The grain in them is generally perfectly sound. 

 It would be thought that moisture would penetrate the pits ; but from the 

 nature of the soil, and the site chosen, this seldom appears to occur. Money 

 and jewels are often hidden at the bottom of ragi-pits for safe keeping. 

 A corps of men is said to have been attached to invading armies in Mysore 

 in former days to search for ragi on the sites of villages temporarily left by 

 their inhabitants. The searchers were provided witli steel testing-rods, and 

 from constant practice knew pretty well where to look for the hidden stores. 

 They are said to have been guided chiefly by the smell of the tip of the 

 rod on withdrawing it as to whether they had " struck ragi." 



Few of the Oopligas when I began work at Morlay had more than a 

 piece of cloth to wrap round their loins, and a coarse blanket, or cmnhly, as 

 a protection against wet or cold. Wlien hunting or working they wear 

 absolutely nothing but the langoty, which is a string round the loins and a 

 piece of cloth about a hand's-breadth fastened to it in front ; this is carried 

 between the legs, and is tucked under the string again behind. It is an 

 extremely practical attire, light and airy in appearance, as far as it can be 

 seen, and one that does not hamper their activity. There are few large or 

 well-conditioned men amongst the Oopligas. Their endurance, however, in 

 hunting or work is remarkable. They take two meals a-day — one about ten 

 o'clock in the morning, the other at eight in the evening. Meat is a great 

 treat to them, and I frequently shoot deer or pigs for them. They do not 

 €at cow's flesh, nor even that of the bison, which they consider to be of the 

 same holy caste, though they eat jackals, wild cats, field-rats, iguana lizards, 

 &c. They never drink any intoxicating liquor. Though they live in a date- 

 grove, from the trees in which " toddy " is daily drawn in large quantities 

 for sale elsewhere, and although from the pots tied to the trees they might 

 drink on the sly at any time, not a single OopHga ever, to my certain know- 

 ledge, does so. It is not an hereditary usage, and they no more long for 

 liquor than an Englishman does for blubber or train-oil. 



Their women are mostly very ugly. They only possess the charms 

 attaching to budding youth for a few years, after which they sink at once 

 into hideous frights. At about twenty-five their youth is gone, and they 

 seem to betake themselves to fifty forthwith without any intermediaie stage. 

 They are of course married early, like all Hindoos, and often have children 

 before they are fourteen years of age. They were at first so poor that they 

 barely had enough rags to satisfy even their very moderate ideas of decency's 

 requirements ; and I have often felt amused whilst commiserating some of 

 the girls who, with a short cloth wound lightly round their loins, and reach- 

 ing but to their knees, endeavoured to pass muster as I rode through the 



