n are splendid against the depths
of green shadow. Her contemplative attitude suggests at once repose and
calm expectancy.

[Illustration]

This afternoon I made another jotting of a woman herding a cow in a dell
at the side of the road shaded from the rays of the afternoon sun. Her
dress was metallic-blue, in folds as severely classical as those of a
Muse of Herculaneum, and it was edged with lines of pale gold. On her
brown arms were silver bangles, and a band of dull rose round the short
sleeves of the bodice. She led a white cow and its calf, and they
browsed on the leaves of oleander; the pink geranium coloured flowers
and grey-green leaves harmonised with the white skins of her beasts.
The black touch in the picture was her smooth black hair and painted
eyebrows.

Here follows a pen scribble in my journal of what happens in this
household once a week I understand. Before dinner mine host and hostess
give some signal and the servants line up on the verandah and their
wages are paid. Such a lot of ground is covered and so very quickly. R.
knows apparently all about each servant, how many children this man has,
and whether they are married or single, and what he owes the
money-lender, what part of the country he comes from, etc., etc. Mrs B.
checks off everything paid out. So from bridge making and railway
contracts in the early morning to annas and pice for servants in the
evening has been R.'s day's work; half-an-hour at this minor business
and we are free for dinner, host and hostess, at any rate, conscious of
a day's work done.

[Illustration]

We were enjoying our cheroots to-night in the warm dusk in the verandah,
when there was a shout that there was a thief in the house--we jumped!
R. into one entrance, I into another, and we scurried round the big,
dark drawing-room trying to catch him; someone passed me and I "held him
low"--it was R. and I felt small! The thief had got out between us, and
had jumped a pretty high balcony, and we followed with a View Haloo or
something to that effect in Tamil from R. I never saw the thief, but R.
said he disappeared under a road bridge which led to a donga and jungle
and native huts. He dodged a neighbour's butler who was brought out by
the shouts, and got away. He had only just got into the house, for there
were only some small silver things taken. It was like a scene from a
comic opera when we got back, as our host and hostess with old fashioned
lamps went along th