1834.] Memoir of the Survey of Travancore. 60 



ground into flour, rice constitute the food of the lower classes for but 

 a portion of the year, their scanty store exhausted, great variety of 

 the yam, cultivated tuberous roots, and sago produced from a species 

 of the palm, affords a substitute, many of the hill tribes subsist 

 almost entirely on arrow root, and the kernels of the eendu, 

 which having been boiled and steeped in a stream for two or three 

 days, operations necessary to extract their poisonous qualities, are 

 ground into flour, but the mountaineers are not alone reduced to this 

 meagre fare, that of all the lower classes is frequently precarious, 

 often, unwholesome and scanty; an indiscriminate appetite makes 

 wild roots of every kind, particularly of aquatic plants, for which 

 the Polayen is seen searching up to his neck the waters of the 

 lak^, lizards, mice, &c. contribute to supply deficiencies, nor will 

 much be rejected by a taste to which the alligator is acceptable, 

 many of the most inferior classes being often reduced to this revol- 

 ting fare. The expence of a Nair family in tolerable circumstan- 

 ces will not exceed ten or twelve Rupees a month, of a Showan 

 family probably not more than a moiety of that sum, which with a 

 Polayen may still be reduced by half: the daily produce is generally 

 consumed at home, butter milk diluted with water and rendered 

 very acid by an infusion of leaves, partly aromatic, being the 

 ordinary beverage ; but they do not confine themselves entirely 

 to so primative a one, most classes (nor have the bramins 

 quite escaped the imputation) indulge in the use of spirits, the 

 temptation is great as it is so easily indulged, the quantity 

 purchased for a few copper coins being sufficient to intoxicate, 

 like all other natives their potations are unsocial, the harsh spi- 

 rit sufficient for the purposes of their course intemperance being 

 more calculated to produce oblivion rather than conviviality. The 

 better ranks too, are addicted to the use of soporifics (particularly 

 opium) a vice by no means uncommon even amongst the christians, 

 whose pastors are not proof against its allurements ; but the placid 

 intoxication it produces is not followed by ferocity, nor do their 

 orgies however intemperate ever end in riot. Of their domestic 

 accomodations little can be said, it has been seen that with the 

 better ranks their houses are objects of vanity and care, feeling.q 

 that do not extend to their furniture, rude couches, and some 

 brass culinary and household utensils appearing the only articles 

 meriting that desi*;nation ; a singular simplicity that makes every 

 thing answer every purpose, converts the bark of the Arreka to 

 many domestic uses.* 



* Or rather the spatha or Aeatuery coveriog, that eutdoses the fruit Talis. 

 early state. 



