. Rev. W.
J. Wilkins says that a servant in his employ married a second wife and
insisted that the first should not only support herself but contribute
the bulk of her wages for the support of wife No. 2. The older wife is
tantalized by the thought that she herself was selected by the parents
of her husband, while the new wife is probably his own choice; and
another cause of jealousy is found in the new wife's youth. For no
matter how old the man himself may be--forty, fifty or sixty--his
bride is always a girl of twelve or thereabouts--and for the very
simple reason that practically no girls remain single longer, and
widows are never allowed to remarry. A story was told me in Bombay of
a Hindu in his fifties who was seeking a new wife and sent an agent to
his native village and caste with power to negotiate.

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[Illustration: THE TAJ MAHAL FROM THE ENTRANCE GATE.]
The most beautiful building on earth with a story no less beautiful
than the building itself.

{242}

[Illustration: GUNGA DIN ON DRESS PARADE.]

Ordinarily the Indian water carrier, or _bhisti_, is attired more
nearly after the manner described in Kipling's poem:

"The uniform 'e wore
Was nothing much before
An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind.
For a twisty piece o' rag and a goatskin leather bag
Was all the field equipment 'e could find."

{243}

"My friends have persuaded me that I ought not to marry a very young
girl," he said to the agent, "get an older one therefore--oh, it
doesn't matter if she is twenty-four."

The agent left and two days thereafter the Hindu received this
message: "Can't find one of twenty-four. How about two of twelve
each?"

The sorrows of a superseded wife, however, are as nothing to the
troubles of a Hindu widow. The teaching of Brahminism is that she is
responsible through some evil committed either in this existence or a
previous one, for the death of her husband, and the cruelest
indignities of the Hindu social system are reserved for the bereaved
and unfortunate woman. If a man or boy die, no matter if his wife is
yet a prattling girl in her mother's home, she can never remarry, but
is doomed to live forever as a despised slave in the home of his
father and mother. Her jewels are torn from her; her head is shaved;
and she is forced to wear clothing in keeping with the humiliation the
gods are supposed to have justly inflicted upon her. In a school I
visited in Calcu