A LITTLE KNOWN PEOVINCE OF THE INDIAN EMPIKE. 137 



was the only European resident there, and this man promptly 

 packed me in a palanquin, and I was carried 44 miles without 

 a halt, save those necessary, every 8 or 9 miles, to admit of the 

 cari'iers being changed. The bearer walked by my side the 

 whole distance, and on arrival at Cuttack fetched a doctor, and 

 not until I had been attended to. did he suggest that he might 

 be permitted to go and eat. I can therefore bear testimony to 

 their faithfulness and capability of bearing fatigue. This old 

 man can read and write Uriya and Hindi, read Bengali, and has 

 a shglit knowledge of English, in which language I had a letter 

 from him this Christmas. For all these talents, his remuneration, 

 which was always somewhat above what I may call Trade's 

 Union wages, varied from 16 to 24 shilUngs a month. 

 Taken as a whole, the people are slight and delicate in build, 

 but capable of great endurance in tasks within their powers. 



With the exception of Cuttack, there is no large town in 

 Orissa. Puri is an assemblage of lodging-houses clustered 

 round the temple, and Balasore, which has some shipping, and 

 the smaller towns, a conglomeration of connected villages, in 

 which the usual routine of country life is followed ; rice is 

 brought from the fields and threshed, cows kept and village 

 industries pursued. Town life is not popular, and most of the 

 residents have small patches of land on the outskirts which 

 they cultivate. 



The Orissa manufacturing industry is not extensive. In old 

 days cloth of great fineness, muslin, was w^oven and exported to 

 Europe'; now Manchester piece goods have supplanted country- 

 made cloth, except the coarser kinds, which are said to be more 

 durable than those imported. Potters who use the old-fashioned 

 wheel abound. Many of the carpenters are really clever 

 w^orkmen, but the great majority of them are employed on work, 

 such as making ploughs, rough doors and windows and common 

 furniture, such as stools, beds and chests, not requiring much 

 skill. Under European supervision they can build dog-carts 

 and other carriages, copy from an illustration in a catalogue 

 many articles of furniture, and, in a workshop, use most of the 

 ordinary machine tools. They carve well, if given time and 

 left to themselves. There are blacksmiths, brass-founders, and, 

 on the hills, iron smelters on a small scale. They are good 

 boat builders, and the masons are skilful, some of them being 

 really expert carvers. 



I may perhaps here tell a story as showing what could be 

 done in Orissa as early as 1838. Just after the famine in 1867 

 the lighthouse-keeper at False Point complained that the Public 



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