ANIMAL LIFE ALONG THE JUMNA. 65 



stream is conducted into the mouth. I always kept a clean com- 

 partment in my leather cartridge-bag which, when filled with water, 

 served me as well as a drinking-cup. 



The villages were built of mud and thatched with straw, the 

 houses huddled closely together in a higgledy-piggledy way, win- 

 dowless, often doorless, ana with mother earth for a floor. At 

 midday they are hot as ovens. How wretchedly filthy they must 

 be during the rainy season, when all this dust is turned into liquid 

 mud, and rain drips through everv' roof. 



In one of these river villages, at the foot of a tree which seemed 

 to be used as a shrine, I came suddenly upon a sculptured stone 

 image which almost took my breath away. Like Mark Twain in 

 the Jardin Mabille, I covered my face with my hands — but I looked 

 between my fingers. It was about two feet long, very neatly 

 sculptured, but the subject was the most obscene that could be 

 imagined. And this emblem of purity (?) the villagers reverence, 

 I suppose. Verily the Hindoos have queer tastes. 



The native men were, as a rule, very good looking, and their 

 featiires were as regular, symmetxical, and finely cut as those of 

 Europeans. If they were white they would make handsome Ital- 

 ians, Physically they are, as a rule, lean, lank, and poorly mus- 

 cled, which is due to their living a life of perpetual hunger. No 

 wonder they are natui-ally timid and cowardly, or that one vigo- 

 rous, beef-eating white man can overawe a multitude. In ci\il life 

 this is actually the case, for we behold 130,886 English men and 

 women occupying the country and ruling 191,307,070 natives — 

 only one white person to every 1,461 natives, every one of whom 

 would gladly see the English thrust out of India, but they do not 

 dare say so. The natives have a saying that if every native in India 

 would throw only a handful of dust upon the nearest Englishman, 

 every one of them would be buried. 



"Whenever I chanced to meet a woman in any of those villages, 

 she invariably pulled a corner of her mantle across her face and 

 turned her head aside, as if she were ashamed for such ugliness to 

 be seen. It was certainly veiy considerate of them, for they were 

 almost as homely as buffaloes. Somehow it seemed that all the 

 women were old, wrinkled, and skinny, and all the females who 

 were not, were the little girls. 



The natives were kind to us, after a fashion, in occasionally 

 bringing us milk, for which they refused all pay. I would gladly 

 believe they did this out of pure friendliness, but we must give 

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