r legitimate
result, restricts their hospitable efforts, within their own dwelling,
to the sometimes narrow limits of their own particular caste.
Invitations to members of castes above their own would not be
accepted. And if, in some cases, a broad-minded Hindu would be not
unwilling to invite to dinner a friend belonging to a caste lower than
his own, his good intentions would be almost certainly checkmated by
the ladies of his household, who would refuse to cook for the
intruder.

Rich men give feasts out of doors to a variety of people, who sit in
groups according to their caste. Even lepers and beggars are not
unfrequently fed in this fashion on a large scale by those who are
wealthy. Such feasts, however, do not come exactly under the laws of
hospitality, because they are held according to the fancy of the
giver. It is practically a matter of obligation to feast people
bountifully in connection with marriages and deaths and some other
ceremonies.

Any actual breach of the Indian code of hospitality is regarded as a
serious lapse, and even within the limits of the family and caste, the
burden of hospitality can become a very heavy one. A well-to-do Hindu
in Poona city built a new three-storied house in a corner of his large
compound. As he had already got a house of apparently ample
dimensions, I asked him what was the object of this new one. He said
that it was for his guests; and he then proceeded to give me a good
deal of information concerning Hindu customs connected with
hospitality.

He said that guests who come to stay usually arrive without
invitation, or previous notice. They are often attended by wife and
children and other relations, and remain for an indefinite time. A
visit of even two or three months' duration is quite usual. I asked if
it was not possible to hint that it was time that the visit came to a
close. But he said that to do so would be considered very rude, and a
great breach of hospitality, and that it was never done. People who
are not well off, often pay these long visits for the sake of the
free rations; and, on account of their poverty, it is impossible to
pay them back in their own coin by going to stay a corresponding time
with them.

Indian Christians retain strongly these national ideas concerning the
laws of hospitality, and are generous in their entertainment of each
other, even although it means that their monthly supply of grain will
run short, and that they will be hard