o fig-leaf suspended from a cocoa-nut-fibre
waist-string, and the white-and-red tattooing of his holy caste on his
forehead, presides over a big lump of goodakoo (a preparation of tobacco,
rose-leaves, jaggeree, bananas, opium, and cardamom seed, used for
hookah-smoking), and his double performs the same office for sickly, warm
goats' milk and doughy, unleavened chup-patties. Uninviting as is the
prospect, one is compelled, by the total absence of any alternative, to
patronize the proprietor of the latter articles.

As I step inside his little shed-like establishment to see what he has,
he holds up his hands in holy trepidation at the unhallowed intrusion,
and begs me to be seated outside. My entrance causes as much
consternation as the traditional bull in the china shop, the explanation
of which is to be found in the fact that anything I might happen to touch
becomes at once defiled beyond redemption for the consumption of native
customers. With the weather wilting hot, doughy chuppaties and lukewarm,
unstrained, strong-tasting goats' milk can scarcely be called an
appetizing meal, and the latter is served in the usual cheap, earthenware
platter, which is at once tossed out and broken.

The natives of India are probably less concerned about their stomachs
than the people of any other country in the world. They seem to delight
in fasting, and growing thin and emaciated; their ordinary meal is a
handful of parched grain and a few swallows of milk or water. Among the
aesthetic Brahmans are many specimens reduced by habitual fasting and
general meagreness of diet to the condition of living skeletons; yet they
seem to enjoy splendid health, and live to a shrivelled old age. The
Brahman shop-keeper squats contentedly among his wares, passing the hours
in dreamy meditation and in consoling pipes of goodakoo. Nothing seems to
disturb his calm serenity, any more than the reposeful expression on the
countenance of a marble Buddha could be affected--nothing but the
approach of a Sahib toward his shop. It is interesting to observe the
mingled play of politeness, apprehension, and alarm in the actions of a
Brahman shopkeeper at the appearance of a blundering, but withal
well-meaning Sahib, among his wares. Knowing, from long experience, that
the Englishman would on no account wilfully injure his property or
trample wantonly on his caste prejudices, he is at his wits' end to
comport himself deferentially and at the same time prevent