m learn to read. If a girl is learning regularly it
gives one a sort of right of entrance to the house. One's going there is
not so much observed and one gets good chances, but to all our
persuasions they only said it was not their custom to allow their girls
to learn. Had _they_ to do Government work? Learning was for men who
wanted to do Government work. We explained a little, and mentioned the
many villages where girls are learning to read. They thought it a wholly
ridiculous idea. Then we told them as much as we could in an hour about
the great love of Jesus Christ.

I was in the middle of it, and thinking only of it and their souls, when
an old lady with fluffy white hair leaned forward and gazed at me with a
beautiful, earnest gaze. She did not speak; she just listened and gazed,
"drinking it all in." And then she raised a skeleton claw, and grabbed
her hair, and pointed to mine. "Are you a widow too," she asked, "that
you have no oil on yours?" After a few such experiences that beautiful
gaze loses its charm. It really means nothing more nor less than the
sweet expression sometimes observed in the eyes of a sorrowful animal.

But her question had set the ball rolling again. "Oil! no oil! Can't you
even afford a halfpenny a month to buy good oil? It isn't your custom?
Why not? Don't any white Ammals ever use oil? What sort of oil do the
girls use? Do you _never_ use castor oil for the hair? Oh, castor oil is
excellent!" And they went into many details. The first thing they do
when a baby is born is to swing it head downwards, holding its feet, and
advise it not to sin; and the second thing is to feed it with castor
oil, and put castor oil in its eyes. "Do we do none of these things?" We
sang to them. They always like that, and sometimes it touches them: but
the Tamils are not easily touched, and could never be described as
unduly emotional.

All through there were constant and various interruptions. Two bulls
sauntered in through the open door, and established themselves in their
accustomed places; then a cow followed, and somebody went off to tie the
animals up. Children came in and wanted attention, babies made their
usual noises. We rarely had five consecutive quiet minutes.

When they seemed to be getting tired of us, we said the time was
passing, to which they agreed, and, with a word about hoping to come
again, to which they answered cordially, "Oh yes! Come to-morrow!" we
went out into the street, and fi