EXPEBIENCES -OP MB. STALE. 
she is stili there pounding and sifting idee. Stop and 
speak to her. We suspect you will be glad to have an 
<axcuse; she will probably turn round her back to you, 
and pretend lo be very busy picking stones out of the 
rice pounder ; don’t be in the least alarmed about the 
possibility of a fellow \!9ith a big beard watching you 
trom behind the door opposite, For of course we 
don’t wish you to be impertinentj or even to joke. 
Tell her, a P. D, has been writing long stories about 
her, and laughing at all her queer customs, and he is 
actually getting them printed? She will lean her arms 
on the rice poundei*, and her cheek upon her arms, 
gazing intently on the ground, as if trying to recollect 
eomething. She will then say, *i I have heard of him ; 
yes, be must be the same. My grandmother is often 
speaking of him and says, he was always particularly 
polite and attentive to her, as indeed to all the ladies 
on the estate, and never would allow them to be 
oppressed and beaten by suspicious husbands and zeal- 
ous lovers. Is he married?” You will say “Mo.” 
The rice pounder will drop from her hands, which she 
will clasp undr her chin, as she exclaims, “Anta- 
manai sakkai. Whatever does the man mean ! Is he 
sick?” You will say, Mo, and that you suspect he is 
in somewhat of the same condition in which Mr. 
Perean described Mr Easy to be, when he wrote to 
his own friend from Bombay, “Dangerously well, and 
grumbling at all the money spent on his estate, be- 
cause he wishes it all to spend himself.” Then she 
will suddenly clap her hands and say, “I know! for 
how could he possibly care about any of his own 
countrywomen, after having seen us ?” Then you can 
say, “ It can’t be that, or he would not be telling all 
these tales about you.” She will then fire up and say, 
“ It is very well for that sweet pea (P) to crow, on 
the other side of the water, but just let him come 
out here again, and he is laughing at the rings incur 
noses, is he ? just let him come back, and bring a few 
plain gold rings of different sizes, and he will soon 
lind a finger to fit one of them. Come back, come back, 
sweet pea ! Or is he afraid ?” But enough, of this 
nonsence ; enough has been said to give our readers a 
laugh, but as our practical friends laugh, they will 
admit the very truth of the whole description, or 
“ Minatchi ” is much changed from what she was ; 
and the habits of Asiatics are not so easily changed, 
perhaps a little modified and smoothed down, but 
fundamentally the same, as they were a quarter of a 
century ago — aye, or even a hundred, or hundreds of 
years ago — instead of thirty. There is one change 
however, and that is, freedom of, and free talk to, the 
Europeans. Such a conversation as has been above 
described between master and Minatchi, was not 
