1834.] 



On Slavery in Southern India, 



248 



dra, is defined with extraordinary precision, by local rules, which in 

 the southern part of the province are exceeded in practice. This 

 removal of the agrestic slave from the dwelling and person of the mas- 

 ter, which the wide difference established between their castes induc- 

 es, whilst it no doubt tends to relieve him from the ill usage to 

 which the personal character of a violent Mahomedan master may 

 sometimes expose the domestic slave employed in the house, at the 

 same time deprives him of that habitually indulgent treatment which 

 a constant interchange of household duties seldom fails to produce, 

 especially on the part of the milder Hindoo. The food, clothing 

 and comforts of the agrestic slave are, in consequence, every where 

 inferior to those of the domestic one. In the Tamil country, the 

 agrestic slaves are entitled to certain proportion of the harvest reap- 

 ed on the land they cultivate, and to prescribed fees in grain at each 

 stage of the previous cultivation, as well as at certain national fes- 

 tivals. Some of them who are outcastes possess also a right to all 

 the cattle which die from disease ; and they eat the flesh of such 

 animals, as well as that of snakes, and other reptiles : but in gene- 

 ral their food is the coarsest grain ; and if a judgment may be form- 

 ed from their appearance, which is generally that of stout athletic 

 men, it is not deficient either in quantity or quality. Their clothing 

 indeed, is scanty, but not always from defect. When I first went 

 to Tanjore, I found, in the spring of the year, most of the fields oc- 

 cupied by the female agrestic slaves, transplanting rice, generally to 

 the tune of some popular air, sung by one of them, in the chorus of 

 which the rest joined ; and was surprised to find that these women 

 left the whole of the body, from the waist upwards, naked, the bo- 

 som being invariably 'exposed. Attributing this to the want of 

 suflficient clothing, I employed myself in investigating measures cal- 

 culated to increase its supply, and thus prevent a breach of the na- 

 tural rules of modesty common to civilized fife ; but I found that, 

 like certain classes of Hindoo females on the western coast, covering 

 the bosom, in the minds of this caste, is considered equivalent to a 

 declaration of prostitution itself: fear, therefore, of a greater moral 

 evil, obliged me to abandon my intention of attempting any change 

 in this revolting custom. Besides food and clothing, the master al- 

 so defrays the expense of the marriage of his slaves, and in the Ta- 

 mil country presents them with small gifts on the birth of each child. 

 The description of the agrestic slaves given in my reply to this query, 

 is confined to the Tamil country ; my personal knowledge being de- 

 rived from that portion of it which consists of the fertile province of 

 Tanjore. I must add, that the lajided tenures on the Coromandel 



