THE BETEL INDUSTRY 169 



and in a hot climate green leaves do not keep 

 their freshness without special care. 



But the necessity for attending to all these matters 

 no doubt adds greatly to the interest which a chewer 

 of pan supari is able to find in life. Moreover, his 

 taste and wealth have scope for expression in the 

 elegance of his appointments, and by these you may 

 generally judge of a man's rank and means. A 

 well-to-do Mahratta cartman will carry in his 

 waistband a sort of bijou hold-all of coloured cloth, 

 which, when unrolled, displays neat pockets of 

 different forms for the leaves, broken nuts, lime 

 box, spices, etc. ; but a native magistrate, who goes 

 about attended by a peon and need not carry his 

 own things, will have a box of polished brass, or 

 even silver, divided into compartments. 



One may easily infer that to meet such a universal 

 want there must be a correspondingly great industry, 

 and the cultivation of the betel nut is indeed a great 

 industry, and a most beautiful one. Surely since 

 Adam first began to till the ground in the sweat of 

 his face, his children have found no tillage so Eden- 

 like as this. India has produced no Virgil to take 

 the common charms of a farmer's life and put them 

 into immortal song, so we search her literature in 

 vain to learn how her simple, rustic people feel 

 about these things, and in what we see of their life 

 there is little sign that they feel about them at 

 all ; but when the Englishman, wandering, gun in 

 hand, up a steaming valley among forest-clad hills, 



