s but little clothing, and his young children none at all. But he
suffers much in the rains because he has no change of garments, and
in the cold weather because his flimsy dress is no protection; and if
he gets a little money he gladly buys a blanket, or a warm coat. He
has no lamp in his dwelling because he cannot afford it, and after the
early nightfall he has to pass his evening hours sitting in the dark,
when there is no moon. In almost all the houses of a country village
in western India, and in many of the houses in towns, there is no
furniture at all. Sometimes there is a small cot for the baby, hung
from one of the rafters; and now and then a somewhat larger wooden
frame, suspended in the same fashion, is used by the grown-up members
of the family to sit or sleep upon. But, as a rule, everybody sits and
sleeps on the ground. The floors of the houses are invariably made of
earth, beaten down hard, and smeared periodically with a decoction of
cow-dung.

Even a well-to-do Indian takes his food sitting on the ground in the
place where the food was cooked, which is often a dark lean-to
building, attached to the main dwelling. He takes off all his clothing
except his _dhota_, and eats with his fingers in silence. Sociality at
such a time is out of place; it diverts the mind from the business in
hand, which is that of "filling the belly," as the Indian himself
commonly expresses it. The women of the household never sit down to
dinner with the rest of the family. They wait on the men, and then
take their own meal afterwards by themselves. There is nothing
elevating in the process.

The meal of an average Indian Christian family is a complete contrast.
Poverty probably compels simplicity and frugality; but father and
mother and children sit down together, and there is much sociality.
The desire to sit on chairs merely as a mark of distinction is a
foolish aspiration. Nevertheless, as an Indian Christian once
expressed it to me, "The wish to come off the floor means that we are
growing in refinement and politeness."

There are usually no windows in most of the older houses of the poorer
people. Modern houses have sometimes several windows, but they are
barred and shuttered, and from long habit are usually kept closed by
preference. The only movable articles in the houses of the bulk of the
Indian population are the brass and copper, or earthenware, cooking
pots and pans, and the prosperity of the household can be pret