126 IN THE INDIAN JUNGLE. 



At mid-day the women would ask leave to go 

 into the forest to change their leaves, which had 

 by that time become crisp and begun to fall to 

 pieces from the heat. After they had been with 

 me a week, I directed my store-keeper to supply 

 each of the women with a few yards of cloth, 

 as I thought it was their poverty alone that 

 prevented their clothing themselves. Next day 

 the whole of them struck work, and the men 

 came to me with a complaint that if their 

 women were compelled to wear clothing, they 

 would all leave, as only bad women wore clothing ! 

 Eve's garment was a symbol of innocence with 

 them. Polyandry is practised among these people, 

 or more correctly communism, since the married 

 women are the property of the sept or tribe. They 

 appear to have no notion of numbers except one 

 and many. They cannot grasp the idea of two. 

 I asked one woman how many children she had. 

 She said, " Many not one, but many/' She had 

 but two. They measure limited time by the 

 withering of the sal leaf. " How far is such a 

 place ? " " As far as two sal leaves take to 

 wither," i.e., twelve hours' journey or thirty-six 

 miles, a sal leaf taking, they say, about six hours 

 to wither. Different seasons of the year are 

 determined by such expressions as " When the 

 pea-fowl lay," " when the mohua tree blooms," 

 " in the rice harvest," " when the nights are 

 cold." 



On one occasion I was treated to a Juang nautch, 

 and certainly nothing quainter or more amusing in 



