and dried refuse from cow stalls that Americans use
for fertilizing their fields. "We have found rather bad results," a
missionary told me, "from providing Indian girls with mattresses,
chairs, knives, forks, etc., at our mission schools. Later, when they
marry our native workers, the $5-a-month income of the family (which
is about all they can expect) is insufficient to provide these
luxuries, and the girl's recollections of former comforts are likely
to prove a source of dissatisfaction to her."

At first you ask, "But why are there no windows in the houses? Surely
the people could leave openings in the clay walls that would give
light and ventilation?" The answer is that most of the year the
weather is so hot that the hope of the owner is to get as nearly
cave-like conditions as possible; to find, as it were, a cool place in
the earth, untouched by the fiery glare of the burning sun outside.
Even in north central India in the houses of the white men, where
everything has been done to reduce the temperature and with every
punkah-fan swinging the room's length to make a breeze, the
temperature in May and June is 106 or higher, and at midnight in the
open air the thermometer may reach 105. "It is then no uncommon
thing," a friend in Agra told me, "to find even natives struck down
dead by the roadside; and the railways have men designated to take and
burn the bodies of those who succumb to the heat in travel by the
cars."

In such a warm climate the dress of the people, as has already been
suggested, is not very elaborate. In fact, the garb of the adult man
is likely to be somewhat like the uniform of the {216} Gunga Din (the
Indian _bhisti_ or water-carrier for the British regiment):

"The uniform 'e wore
Was nothin' much before
An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind--
For a twisty piece o' rag
And a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field equipment 'e could find."

In cold weather, however, the majority of the men are rather fully
covered, and in any case they add a turban or cap of some gaudy hue to
the uniform just suggested.

As for the dress of the women, a typical woman's outfit will consist
of, say, a crimson skirt with a green border, a navy-blue piece of
cloth as large as a sheet draped loosely (and quite incompletely)
around the head and upper part of the body, and a breast-cloth or
possibly a waist of brilliant yellow. This combination of hues, of
course, is only a specimen. The actual col