102 



TWO TEAES IN THE JUNGLE. 



By many observers they are thouglit to be directly descended 

 from one of the tribes of Israel — which belief is based on their 

 facial resemblance, their semi-noraadic habits, and their customs 

 regarding marriage and divorce. To my mind, there is something 

 so decidedly Israelitish in their hereditary and violent abhorrence 

 of tilHng the soil, horticulture, and all other manual labor, that I 

 am constrained to believe the suspicion is well founded. 



The habitation of the Toda is precisely what one would expect 

 of such an animal. It is of the smallest possible size, close and 

 hot, dark as a dungeon, destitute of fui-niture, and full of fleas. It 

 is more like a rustic dog-kennel than the habitation of a human 

 being. It looks like an overgrown dog-kennel in every line, and 

 whoever enters it can only do so by going on all-fours. It has no 

 window whatever, no chimney or smoke-hole, and the only opening 

 is a door in one end of the hut. 



The tyj^ical hut is eight feet square, and about the same in 

 height to the angle of the Gothic roof. The ends are boarded up 

 tightly with rough boards, the cracks being filled with sun-baked 

 clay. There is but one door, a rectangular hole three feet high by 

 two wide, at the middle of one end, next to the ground. There 

 are no side walls, for the roof reaches quite to the ground on either 

 side, and the rafters even run into the earth. 



The roof is thatched with lemon-grass lashed to the bamboo 

 rafters with split rattan. The huts built as above are quite sub- 

 stantial, but sometimes one is put up in more flimsy fashion, of 

 smaller size, with angular peak, flat-sided roof, and low side walls. 

 It was a hut of this kind that sheltered us from the rain at Bet- 



mund, and almost smothered us, too, 

 until we kicked out one of the ends and 

 secured a supply of fresh air. 



In spite of the darkness and fleas I 

 entered one of the huts at Muddimund 

 and examined it carefully. The accom- 

 panying diagram wiU explain the interior 

 better than any description, a being a 

 slightly elevated bed of clay, on which 

 the adults of the family slept, h a vacant 

 space in the middle of the floor where 

 the children slept, c the fireplace, d the stone mortar, and e a place 

 set apart for the culinarj- utensils, bags of grain, etc. To me, this 

 place was like a veritable Black Hole, and how three adults and 



Ground Plan of a Toda Hut. 



