CONDUCTOES AKD THEIE WIVES, 
true, and it may proceed from this cause, that the 
women having no occupation whatever devote almost 
their whole spare time, and often the time that belongs 
to the master too, to the receiving of and relating 
light general news. Thus the husband, coming home 
from his work is treated to all the news of the day 
however trifling and silly, and he always finds every 
thing is true. Having thus always been accustomed to 
receive truthful reports of all events from his spouse-, 
it never enters into his mind to doubt her word, he 
does not and perhaps cannot reason that in private 
personal matters of great importance to the woman, 
in order to answer any purpose whatever, she may 
take advantage of her general character for truthful- 
ness, where truth or falsehood did not at all concern 
her personally. Presuming upon this, she might, and 
doubtless often does, pass off a lie in order to gain 
some private end. Be this as it may, as a rule, the 
husband always places implicit reliance on the state- 
ments of his wife, so much so, that on his word being 
doubted, as to any special statement, he will clinch 
the truth of it by saying, my wife told me/' Of 
course there are, at times occasional exceptions, we 
refer only especially to the happy couple, who live 
happily together, the knowledge of the woman on all 
general subjects, is tolerably correct, because, small 
talk and gossip, is the ^way in which they spend their 
time, the master being the principal on the estate, 
every thing he does, however trifling and unimportant 
is news. It will be told to the coolie, by his wife, 
the time he is eating hia rice, and she is sitting, 
looking on, how master passed by the lines, and 
looked in. Then, he v/ent up to the top of that hill, 
looked at the weeders, and called , back Ckrpen, for 
doing careless work, and how he made him do it 
over again, then he came down, and went round the 
hill, close to the river, where he disappeared for a 
long time, and then, just to see what he could be 
about, she went a little way out, pretending to gather 
fire- wood, and there was master sitting on a big 
stone, at the edge of the river, quite naked, he had 
been bathing, he was drying himself with his coat, 
which he afterwards spread out on a big rock to dry 
in the sun, before putting it on again, and another 
woman told her, that after master went to the bungalow, 
he bad some coffee, for just as she was passing, didn’t 
she s^^the boy, coming out of the kitchen with the 
coffee pot, and a cup, and then the next that passed 
by said, master was sitting in the verandah smoking, 
he would not go out to work again to-day, for it was 
' past three o’clock, she was quite sure, for as she passed, 
she heard the bungalow clock strike, and just to be 
quite certain she hailed the hoy, who was always very 
