ty
accurately gauged by the quality, number, and condition of these
utensils. A few people own besides an old box or two, generally
containing an accumulation of old rags, which nearly all Indians seem
to take an interest in collecting. Extra clothes, when they have any,
are hung on large wooden pegs, which are fixed into the walls of most
rooms in Indian dwellings.

One result of the comfortless and dreary aspect of the interior of an
Indian's house is that very few of them have any home life, as we
understand it. The Indian does not sit indoors, unless compelled to
do so by sickness, or stress of weather. And though the majority are
satisfied so to live, because no other manner of life is known to
them, there is nothing beautiful about it. Even from a purely physical
point of view, it is an unwholesome state of things. The airless,
lightless houses are most unsavoury, and in times of sickness and
childbirth this is intensified. It cannot be wondered at that plague,
or cholera, or malignant fevers, often make frightful ravages in
families. Nor does it tend to elevate the character to sit on a mud
floor dozing in the dark, or telling scandalous stories with the
children drinking in every word.

By way of contrast, I recall the country home of a Brahmin doctor, who
has built himself a house at Yerandawana as a haven of refuge in time
of plague. It is surrounded by a little garden, radiant with flowers.
It lacks the neatness of an English garden, nevertheless it is
something far away ahead of anything which any of his neighbours have
attempted. His name means "seven sons." He has already got six, and is
hoping for the seventh. These six little sons are dressed in ordinary
English boys' dress. They are frequent visitors at the Mission
bungalow. It may, of course, be only English prejudice which makes
this dress appear to me better for the boys themselves than the scant
garments of the Indian. Instead of the usual shorn head and small
pigtail, their glossy hair, very neat in the case of the elder boys,
tumbled about in the case of the younger ones, is a delightful
contrast.

But to look in at the open door in the evening at their home life, as
I have often done, is entirely convincing. A table is in the middle of
the room covered with a red cloth; there is a bright lamp, a few
pictures are on the walls, and the party of cheerful boys are sitting
round the table. Some are playing games, others are drawing, some are
look