ruck down in this way. Even if you give them
medicine, they often have not energy enough to take it. You must see
them take it before your eyes. It is _your_ struggle not theirs. _You_
must rouse them, by _your_ will. _Your_ energy must compel _them_ to
make an attempt to combat their weakness. Once you rouse a man, and
infuse some spirit into him, he may resist his disease, but it is a
hard fight to get him to TRY. What a meaning in that one word TRY! TO
ACT. TO DO. The average poor suffering native Hindoo knows nothing of
it.

Of course their moods vary. They have their 'high days and holidays,'
feasts, processions, and entertainments; but on the whole the average
ryot or small cultivator has a hard life.

In every village there are generally bits of uncultivated or jungle
lands, on which the village herds have a right of pasture. The cow
being a sacred animal, they only use her products, milk and butter.
The urchins may be seen in the morning driving long strings of
emaciated looking animals to the village pasture, which in the evening
wend their weary way backwards through the choking dust, having had
but 'short commons' all the day on the parched and scanty herbage.

The police are too often a source of annoyance, and become
extortionate robbers, instead of the protectors of the poor. It seems
to be inherent in the Oriental mind to abuse authority. I do not
scruple to say that all the vast army of policemen, court peons,
writers, clerks, messengers, and underlings of all sorts, about the
courts of justice, in the service of government officers, or in any
way attached to the retinue of a government official, one and all are
undeniably shamelessly venal and corrupt. They accept a bribe much
more quickly than an attorney a fee, or a hungry dog a shin of beef.
If a policeman only enters a village he expects a feast from the head
man, and will ask a present with unblushing effrontery as a perquisite
of his office. If a theft is reported, the inspector of the nearest
police-station, or _thanna_ as it is called, sends one of his
myrmidons, or, if the chance of bribes be good, he may attend himself.
On arrival, ambling on his broken-kneed, wall-eyed pony, he seats
himself in the verandah of the chief man of the village, who
forthwith, with much inward trepidation, makes his appearance. The
policeman assumes the air of a haughty conqueror receiving homage from
a conquered foe. He assures the trembling wretch that, 'actin