or husking rice, in the cool shadow of her
hut, for the wants of her lord and master.

Education is now making rapid strides; it is fostered by government,
and many of the wealthier landowners or Zemindars subscribe liberally
for a schoolmaster in their villages. Near the principal street then,
in a sort of lane, shadowed by an old mango-tree, we come on the
village school. The little fellows have all discarded their upper
clothes on account of the heat, and with much noise, swaying the body
backwards and forwards, and monotonously intoning, they grind away at
the mill of learning, and try to get a knowledge of books. Other dusky
urchins figure away with lumps of chalk on the floor, or on flat pieces
of wood to serve as copy-books. The din increases as the stranger
passes: going into an English school, the stranger would probably cause
a momentary pause in the hum that is always heard in school. The little
Hindoo scholar probably wishes to impress you with a sense of his
assiduity. He raises his voice, sways the body more briskly, keeps his
one eye firmly fixed on his task, while with the other he throws a keen
swift glance over you, which embraces every detail of your costume, and
not improbably includes a shrewd estimate of your disposition and
character.

Hindoo children never seem to me to be boys or girls; they are
preternaturally acute and observant. You seldom see them playing
together. They seem to be born with the gift of telling a lie with most
portentous gravity. They wear an air of the most winning candour and
guileless innocence, when they are all the while plotting some petty
scheme against you. They are certainly far more precocious than English
children; they realise the hard struggle for life far more quickly. The
poorer classes can hardly be said to have any childhood; as soon as
they can toddle they are sent to weed, cut grass, gather fuel, tend
herds, or do anything that will bring them in a small pittance, and
ease the burden of the struggling parents. I think the children of the
higher and middle classes very pretty; they have beautiful, dark,
thoughtful eyes, and a most intelligent expression. Very young babies
however are miserably nursed; their hair is allowed to get all tangled
and matted into unsightly knots; their faces are seldom washed, and
their eyes are painted with antimony about the lids, and are often
rheumy and running with water. The use of the pocket handkerchief is
sadly neglecte