An Indian Olio ... With illustrations, etc

Chapter I. Page

Madras — The harbour — Cyclones — Storm at Trichinopoly — Climate of Madras — Monsoon — Reptiles and insects — White ants — Beetles and bugs — The Mount Road — Gardens — Native population — Elephantiasis — Cruel usage of cattle in India, and of camels in Egypt — Society at Madras — "People's Park" — Fire at fair — Pet birds — Pet animals — Snipe and duck — Balapillay Jungle— Jungles of the Cauvery — Poaching with nets — Bear-hunting in Tinnevelly 1-20

Chapter II

Vellore — State prisoners — Reception "of Governor — Sport and climate — Parawat JuDgle — Madras Army — Artillery — Cavalry — Bodyguard and Shaik Ibrahim — Infantry — Sappers — Native officers — ■ Services of the Madras Army — Unfair treatment of it — Present condition and usefulness of the army — Mutinies on political grounds — Emeutes for redress of grievances— Military murders — Shikarree Sepoys — Changed relations between officers and men — Power of commanding officers curtailed — Improved class of native officers — Proposed "Native Sandhurst" — Impolicy of depriving native ranks of right of furnishing their own native officers 21-44 VI CONTENTS.

Chapter III. Page

Trichinopoly — Seringham temples — Rock of Trichinopoly — Fakeer's roses — Tiger in paddy-fields — Wolf in cantonment — Snipe shooting — Animal life in the fields — Bees and hornets — Governor- General attacked by bees— Poisonous snakes — Snake statistics — Supposed murders hidden in snake-bite reports — Toddy cat — Cooking in camp — Venison and game — Dr. Jerdan and native artists — The Mutinies of 1857 — Quiet demeanour and steadiness of the Madras Army — Causes and signs of the Mutinies — Authoritative opinions on the condition of the Bengal Army — The Duke of Wellington on amalgamation of the three armies — Impolitic measures to curtail power of commanders of regiments — Race antipathy — Baron Hiibner on the Indian Government — Vilification of the Government by English writers and orators 43-67

Chapter IV

Journeys in South India — Tanjore — Fertility of district — Exemption from famines — Combaconum — Education of natives — Opinions on education of Sir L. Jackson and Professor Williams — Tranquebar — Negapatam — Point Calimere and its game — The fœtid swamps — Wild fowl and snipe, &c, on swamps — Sea fish — Curious palmyra palm — Palamcottah — Paupanassum — Courtallum — Native Christians — Tuticorin — Pearl aud chank fishery — Madura — Great temple and palace at Madura — Mr. Blackburne's work in Madura — Jungles of the Cummum Valley — Fever-stricken natives of jungles — Pulney mountains — Pass in the mountains from Cummum Valley to Travancore — The Perryaur project 68 9r

Chapter V

Cummum Valley — Dindigul — Serroomullays — Bison — Dangerous encounter with bison — Effect of railroads upon game — Elephant and bison slaughterers — Mahseer — Bhowauy Rest-house — Salem — Minerals — Unhealthiness of Salem — Fever on the Shervaroy Mountains — Cholera — History of cholera — Probable causes of cholera — Contagion, or infection, or both? — Native ideas on cholera — Remedies — Dr. Macmichael — Madras reports — Goddess of cholera and small-pox ! — Mahomedans and Hindoos — Education of Mahomedans — Loyal feeling of Mahomedan community — Statistics of Government posts occupied by the races of India — Sir Lepel Griffin on "Islam" — The Shervaroy Mountains — Coffee planting . . 92-119 CONTENTS. VII

Chapter VI. Page

The Blue Mountains — Sunkerrydroog — Coolies — The Colonel and his barracks— Approach to the Neilgherries — The Coonoor Ghaut — The new road to Coonoor — Tommy Atkins as a naturalist — Coonoor — Ootacamund — Living on "the hills" — "Want of sanitation and conservancy — Game on the Neilgherries — A tiger story — "Wolves and snipe shooting — Tigers on trees — Spring of a tigress up a rock — Ferocity of panthers and leopards — Leopard's larder — Climate of the Neilgherries — Amusements at Ootacamund — Neilgherry hotels — Native servants on "the hills" — Aboriginal inhabitants — The ** Todas " — Discovery of the Neilgherry plateau — Probable extinction of the Todas — The " Burghers " — The " Koorumbahs" ..,.,. 120- ■141

Chapter VII

Mysore and Bangalore — Climate of Bangalore — The Maharajah — Brahminical influence — Hill forts — Gold-mining in Mysore — Lhol Bagh — Flowers, fruit, and vegetables — Snakes and snake-charmers — Jugglers — Poisonous snakes — Dr. Shortt and his cobra — Death of an officer by snake-bite — Shooting in Mysore — Mr. Sanderson, "the Elephant man" — Restrictions upon sport in Mysore and Hyderabad — Food of the soldier in India — Cooking and cooks — ■ 111 effects of native cooks in barracks — British soldiers should cook for themselves — Health of Bangalore — Enteric, properly jungle, fever — Bad water supply — Population of Bangalore — Eurasian farm colony — Bad class of Mahomedans at Bangalore . . 142 162

Chapter VIII

Cuddapah — The climate— Scenery — Jungle fires — A disgusted native officer — The cataracts of the "Bogga" — Camp at Peddagadee — Vicious flies in jungle — Winged pests — Mosquitoes — Sand-flies — Eye-flies — House-flies — Bugs and beetles— Mason bees — Ichneumons — Winged ants — Creeping pests — Tarantula — Harvest spiders — The white ant — Red ant — Little red ant — Great black ant — Processionist ant — Scorpions — Centipedes — The Shikarry — Porcupine dog — Pea-fowl — Malabar squirrel — Loris — Manis — Nullamullah mountains— Diamond digging — Town of Cuddapah — Murder of a civilian — Punishment of murderers — Unhealthiness of Cuddapah 163 •182 CONTENTS. PAGE -2or ■223 •245

Chapter IX

Cumbum— Lake and tanks— Wild-fowl and snipe— Sugar-cane fields- Wild cats and jackals— Pardees— Cumbum fish— Perrun— Murrel —Comb-fish — Carp— Coturna — Eels — Rookchal— Breach in lake outlet — Buffalo sacrifice — Travellers' tales — Condition of people of India — Simple wants of ryots — Dress of women — Authorities on condition of Indian people — Sir W. Denison — Mr. Macpherson — Self-denial of a Hindoo villager — Sir Richard Temple on content of the people of India — Native officials — Opinion of native judge— Opinion of Mr. Prinsep— Indebtedness of ryots— Bombay Commission on agrarian riots — Hindoo law of debt — Report of Commission — Sir R. Temple on condition of the ryots — Cholera at Cumbum 183

Chapter X

Bellary — The rock fort — Leopards and Hyænas — Profile of the Duke of Wellington on craggy hill — Railway — Dry climate of Bellary district — Prevalence of fever — Sport, past and present — Darojee and its tank — Wild-fowl and snipe — Shooting on road to Gooty — Camp life — The "Paddy-bird" aud strong drink — Drunkenness in India — The Government duty on liquor a great check to drinking — "Tulsi the grasscutter" — Ill-treatment of native women in India — The Hindoo child-widow — Hindoos should themselves agitate for abolition of "child-marriage" — An engineer's discovery in geology !— A hyæna attempts to carry off a baby — Project for irrigation of Bellary Plain — Water the life of India . 202

Chapter XI

Secunderabad— Climate of the Deccan — Spear-grass — The subsidiary force— A show parade — The Mowlally races — Secunderabad in 1845, then and now — Kaissera — Death of a panther — Small game in the rains— Rock pigeon— Rain quail — Insects — Tortoise and elephant — Old woman aud a wild beast — Wild beasts in villages Tiger and bears in railway station — Folly of following wounded tigers and panthers "on foot" — Instances of deaths by wounded tigers— Strong vitality of savage animals — The city of Hyderabad — Dangerous population — Fights in the city — Improvement under Sir Salar Jung's government — Street crowds — Tame tigers Elephants in city — Dangerous elephants in the streets . . 224- CONTENTS. IX

Chapter XII

_ -, PAGE The streets of Hyderabad — Nobles aud their equipages — Marriage processions — Nautch girls — Funerals — Meer Allum tank — Ministers' pic-nic — Golcondah — Sport in vicinity of Hyderabad—Putten cherroo — Kundy — Sedasheepett — Arnagoontah — Muggrumpilly — Changalare — The Boogga valley — Warungal and the Percall — Koolpac Brahmins — Snipe and duck at Kooramul — Godavery jungles — Yellmullah jungle — The Hoossain Saugor — Hyderabad sanitation — Secunderabad bazaars — Mahorum and Dusserah — Taboots — The 4th Native Infantry Taboot at exhibitions at Mad ras and Meean-Meer 246-265

Chapter XIII

Kamptee — Description of cantonment gardens — Fruit, flowers, and vegetables — Melon culture — Great flood in the river — Rainfall — Fever and cholera — Advantages of conservancy at Kamptee — Population — Native poaching — Dhoondee Potail and the hog — Sport at Kamptee — Camp at Soorgaum — Chandpa — Boree Meejra — Chankee Kopra — Kotumba — The Pench jungles — Chindwarra — The Kolbeira river — Boodwarra — Snipe and duck shooting — Chakee and Chakoda — Munsur — Chappagaree — Kohie — Paldee ■ — Great fish, and how to catch them — The Paldee tiger — Bravery of a shikarry — Government elephants — Ailments of elephants and remedies for them — Tiger-shooting — Hints on procedure in beating for tigers — Decline of tiger-shooting in Nagpore — Its causes — Tigers should not be killed off too much — Bears, wolves, and hyænas — Mad jackals — The Tent Club — Hog-hunting meet . 266-289

Chapter XIV

Nagpore — Battle of Seetabuldee — City of Nagpore — Population — Character of the Mahrattas — Cheap litigation — Story of a barrister and a Mahratta client — Nagpore villages — The Gonds — A Moslem Gond rajah — Village life in the grain-fields— Seetabuldee — The Residency — Ambajirreeand fishing — The Paddy-bird and hisfishing — Roads and railways — Wurroorah and Mohpanee collieries — Frost at Nagpore — A veteran of seventy years' residence at Nagpore — Nagpore jungles — My shikarry and the blue bull — The new Indian police — Dislike of the Sepoys and inhabitants of India generally CONTENTS. X PAOE to the police — Untrustworthiness and oppression by the police —Cases of police torture— Opinion of Public Service Commission — Savage tribes of Central India — Human sacrifices — "Johur" — Superstition and credulity — Ridiculous scares .... 290-309

Chapter XV

The Northern Circars — Samulcottah — Small game on racecourse — Godavery anicut — Sepoy regiment in the olden time — Strange head-dress — Turband as atravelling bag— The knapsack— Musketry course in former days — Misapplied rewards for good shooting — ■ The Colonel and the square — The facetious orderly-boy — The Sepoy's foot-gear — Evils of boots without socks — The Afghan sandals — A General's inspection — Cheap living in Samulcottah — A shower of fish — Fires in lines — Pykarow hanged— Chicacole — Bear shooting — Antelope, duck, and snipe — Plover — Native ideas of conservancy — Dirty villages — Waltair — Decay of veteran company — Funeral of pauper native — Vizagapatam Harbour — Project — Snakes at Waltair — Cobras and Hamadryads — Black ants . 310-331

Chapter XVI

The western coast of India — Luxuriant vegetation — The rainy season — Mould and mildew — Cannanore — Villages and their gardens — The Wynaad — Jungle leeches — Mountain forests — Elephant, bison, sambur, bears, and hog — Tigers and panthers, &c. — Reptiles — Small game — Snipe-shooting — Fish and fishing — "The rod in India "—Natives of Malabar and Canara — Brahmins, Nairs, and Teers — The Moplahs — Strange undressof Hindoo women — Opinions of " Tommy Atkins " on the women's undress — Moplah outbreaks — The drummer and the Moplah — Outcast tribes of Malabar — An outcast beggar— The Abbe Raynal on the wild outcast tribes — The seeding of bamboos — Basle Mission — Cannanore fort and roadstead — Railway from Madras to Beypore . .... 332-349

Chapter XVII

A command in Burmah— Andaman Islands — Convicts, European and native — The Rangoon river — Shoey-dagon pagoda — The Rangoon strand — Busy scenes — Old Rangoon — Great trade of the new city — Character of the Burmese — Their cruelty and indifference to CONTENTS. XI PAGE human suffering — Bumptiousness of the people — Their extreme laziness — Superior activity of Burmese women — Appearance and dress of Burmese girls — Tattooing — Poonghees — Climate — Sport iu Burmah — Difficulty of the jungles — Scarcity of game in the forests — Elephants — Other large game — Peafowl and pheasants — Snipe-shooting — Crocodiles and pythons — Hamadryads and cobras — The tuktoo — Fruit-market — The Dorian — Gnapee — Inefficient police — Mistaken policy of Burmah Government — Unfortunate radical measures — Disloyalty and incompetence of Burmese officials — Feeble policy of both civil and military authorities — India is taxed for Burmah — Tobacco tax desirable — Future prospects of Burmah— Emigration from India should be encouraged . . 350 ■37°

Chapter XVIII

From Rangoon to Calcutta — The Hooghly — "Garden Reach" — The "Great Eastern" Hotel — The "Maidan" — Insanitary condition of Calcutta — Hindoo indifference to conservancy — Mr. Justice Cunningham's lecture — An executive Sanitary Commission wanted — The Calcutta municipality — Cholera and malarial fever — The "Ilbert Bill" — Opinions of Europeans on it — Rancour of Calcutta Baboos — Anecdote by Sir M. Grant Duff — Sir Syed Ahmed at Lucknow — Sir Lepel Griflin's speech at Gwalior — Probable outcome of "India for the Indians" — Lord Macaulay on the Bengalee race — Trust of the people of India in the British Government — Terrible failure of justice related by the Hon. Mr. Thomas — The Pooree Rajah's conviction — Trial of the Guicowar — Judge of Madras Supreme Court on native evidence — 111 feeling engendered by the " Ilbert Bill " — Sir F. Roberts on the Bill — Scurrility of Hindoo newspapers — Loyalty of Indian princes — Baron Hubner on the government of India 371 ■388 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

No. i. Entrance to Shoey-dagon, Rangoon — Frontispiece. 2. Camp in Jungle To face page 56 3. Scene near Palamcottah .... „ 82 4. Tiger-Shooting from Tree .... „ 136 5. Natives with Casting-nets .... ,, 188 6. " Paddy-bird " Stalking Duck . . . „ 210 7. Elephants Bathing , 28o 8. Buddhist Monastery, Rangoon ... ,,358

Chapter I

Madras— The harbour— Cyclones— Storm at Trichinopoly— Climate of Madras — Monsoon — Reptiles and insects — White ants — Beetles and bugs — The Mount Road— Gardens — Native population- Elephantiasis — Cruel usage of cattle in India, and of camels in Egypt — Society at Madras — "People's Park" — Fire at fair — Pet birds — Pet animals— Snipe and duck — Balapillay Jungle — Jungles of the Cauvery — Poaching with nets — Bear-hunting in Tinnevelly. My volume on " Sport in India " having met with a favourable reception, I am tempted once more to try my fortune as an author; and, at this second essay, to touch upon subjects of general interest which, in a work avowedly dedicated to sport, could find no proper place. Not that sport shall be excluded from these pages — I see no reason why it should be so — moreover, I rather think it would be very difficult for me to write a book on Indian subjects without bringing in "Shikar" pretty freely.

Like Mr. Dick's memorial in " David Copper field," the ruling thought can hardly be kept out : instead of " Charles the First " read " Sport and Natural History," and my meaning will be plain enough. A Having passed the greater part of my life in the " Benighted Presidency," I may properly commence with some notice of Madras itself. Though not exactly a " city of palaces," this Queen of Southern India, and oldest British settlement in India also, shows well from the sea. The palm-crowned sandy shore, with back ground of dim blue hills shimmering in the hazy distance, the tall masts in the harbour and offing, the spires and minarets embowered in rich tropical foliage, please the eye of the approaching voyager ; the massive bastions of Fort St. George, encircling a group of two-storied bar racks and offices, and then a long low line of merchants' houses, and the multitudinous mean and clay-daubed native huts of " Black -town," are seen to stretch for some miles along the strand.

Beyond, to the south, are scattered mansions, usually called •' garden houses," built by magnificent civilians in the happy days when the " pagoda tree " dropped its golden fruit to the smallest shake ! Beautifully do these houses show, " bosomed high in tufted trees ; " with the deep dark verdure of the mango, the peepul, and banian are interspersed the feathery casuarina and graceful bamboo, prettily contrasting the heavy tree masses with their lighter forms. Opposite the native town, and not far from the tall pillar of the lighthouse, are the outstretching arms of the new harbour, now (in 1888) rapidly advancing to com pletion. Already this ambitious work, intended for a safe haven (but where, in cyclonic weather, there can be CYCLONES. 3 no safety), has been heavily damaged by occasional storms ; and it needs no prophet to foretell that, sooner or later, a " first class" hurricane will probably wreck the structure almost beyond repair.

Ships caught in a heavy cyclone within the harbour will surely be destroyed ; and this is ad mitted by the fact that, when the barometer shows coming foul weather, the first act of the marine authorities is to order all ships, whether outside or inside, to put to sea ! In truth, the only use of the harbour and its iron pier is iu fine or moderate weather, when it is a great com fort to all who " go down to the sea in ships," and a great help also in the speedy loading and unloading of cargo. A cyclone on the Coromandel coast is a terrible exhi bition of the power of the winds and waves. With a fast falling barometer, and moaning gusts of wind pre ceded by drenching rain, and ragged drifts of cloud flying before the storm, the full fury of the hurricane rushes up, seeming to blend the leaden sea and dull grey vapour, the drifting rain and salt biting spray, in one bewildering mass of confusion.

The tortured trees groan and twist under the fierce blast ; grass roofs, torn from their sup porting walls, rise in the air, and career, like huge bats, over the plain. Native huts collapse, tiles fly, and ill built and rickety walls and fences are torn down. All animal life, human and quadruped, seeks shelter ; and many wretched birds — crows, kites, &c. — are whipped to death by the lashing branches of trees in which they have taken refuge. The sea rises in confused tossing waves, and flings itself in huge billows upon the sandy shore. Such ships as have not in good time slipped and put to sea, at the repeated warning of guns fired from the fort, strain furiously, high pitching at their anchors ; and, should the cyclone be one of great severity, are driven broadside on to the fatal beach.

In May 1850, the morning after a very terrible cyclone, I walked the whole length of the broadside of the Suli mance, a large ship which had been dashed on shore, and of which one whole side was lying flat, like an overthrown park paling, on the sand. On another occasion, at Trichinopoly, I saw the result of a similar hurricane inland. The morning after the storm, I essayed to walk from my house to the farther end of the station. The road was lined with very old large banian and peepul trees, which the day before had formed a perfect shade with their massive spreading branches, impervious almost to the mid-day sun. This morning all was changed ; the road was impassable, more than half of the magnificent old trees were prone on the ground, their branches so entwined and smashed up that not even the lithe and unencumbered natives could crawl along the highway, which for many days, until cleared by the axes of a hundred labourers, was entirely closed to traffic.

The cyclone months on the Coromandel coast are May and June, October and November. At other times of the year such storms are almost unknown. In the storms which, commencing with 1780, have been noted for more MONSOON. 5 than a century, only two or three are recorded as having occurred in other months. At no season of the year is the climate of Madras very pleasant. The heat is usually great, the atmosphere close and steamy, but tempered in the afternoon by the cooling sea-breeze. At its first sighing gusts all the heavy cane blinds and room-darkening jalousies are drawn up, and the grateful wind enters the hitherto closed rooms, stirring the chandelier drops with a merry sound, from which they are not inaptly designated the "joy bells " when their jingle falls upon longing ears. When the north-east monsoou arrives, and heavy clouds mount up tier upon tier, wind-driven over the darkened sky; and when rain falls, first in heavy drops, and then in rushing torrents ; when the roadside ditches and kennels run fast with reddened water swirling along under a buoyant covering of leaves, sticks, and straws accumulated during many months of dry hot weather ; when the thick coating of red dust is washed from the reviving shrubs and trees ; then does Madras enjoy, for a while, a purer, cooler climate.

The glossy crows no longer sit, with beaks wide open, on verandah walls ; loud croaking frogs squat on the margin of every puddle, and sing their joyful pæans to the rain. The rainbird's monotone is loudly shrieked ; strange insects wake to life and creep abroad. Snakes, driven from their hiding-places by the flooding rain, crawl into huts, and many bare-legged natives are bitten at such times. Scorpions and centipedes also invade the huts, and hosts of less noxious insects creep, and hop, and fly over the moistened plain. Winged white ants, bursting from their deep-seated nests, especially swarm ; the flickering flight of their gauzy wings glitters in the occasional sun-gleams in every direction, and they afford a fine feast to greedy crows, which assemble in noisy troops to devour the helpless visitors to the upper regions before they can cast their wings and wriggle away into safe concealment.

At such times, wherever a light is seen after nightfall, there winged ants fly in thousands. Lamps are at once surrounded by a whizzing host ; and I have seen heaps of these ants swept up into the corner of a mess-room, so as to require large baskets for their removal. These ants are much relished by the natives, and bushels of them arecaught by placing earthen vessels under the cavities of the ant-hills with lighted oil-lamps over them. The ants are attracted in thousands, and drop, with singed wings, into the vessels beneath. At such times also, hundreds of beetles, great and small, drone and whir in every open room, and flop on floors and tables, lying with feebly scrabbling legs on their sharded backs. These are mostly inoffensive ; but two species, commonly called " green bugs," though one of them is clothed iu russet brown, are disgusting in smell, and if touched, or worse, crushed on one's person, emit a most nauseous odour.

Every damp coppice and every little swamp is alive with fire-flies, their green light sparkling like living emeralds among the leaves. MOUNT ROAD GARDENS. 7 Madras roads being metalled with laterite, the fine red dust raised by traffic in dry weather is very trouble some, especially to ladies, whose gay dresses and bright bonnets suffer abominably. The long road which runs from the Mount to Fort St. George, and which is the main line of communication between all parts of Madras, is especially afflicted, and " Mount Boad dust " has a very evil reputation with fashionable people. This road, from the Mount half-way to the Fort, is bordered by cultivated fields, and by orchards of fruit trees, mango, guava, and pomegranate, and by well watered gardens thick with broad-leaved plantains with their heavy drooping fruit-clusters, and abounding in every kind of Indian vegetable ; the thorny egg-plant with its ivory-white fruit shot with purple, green and white striped pumpkins and cucumbers, and snake gourds hanging their slim curved lengths from light trellis frames.

Here likewise the rough stalks of the " bayndee," of which the many-angled pods, filled with glutinous seeds, are, when picked young and well boiled, a delicious vegetable. Many kinds of spinach, gay patches of " chillies " (most biting of peppers) reddening for the harvest, onions, long white radishes, and climbing beans in great variety reward the assiduous care aud watering of the half-clothed gardener. Everywhere is the " lodge in a garden of cucumbers " met with, a rude frame of bamboos thatched with palmyra leaves, in which the cultivator takes his siesta, and his pinch of tobacco deftly rolled in a green leaf, in the midday heat ; and if there be fear of two-legged or four legged depredators, he remains all night wrapped in his unbleached sheet, or his rough black blanket, according to the season.

Hard by, under umbrageous mango or tamarind trees, his patient bullocks lie tethered at night, and also in the heat of the day, until they are required for service of the watering bucket, which they are ever drawing, with its dripping load, from the snake-haunted well, and pacing backwards, toilsomely, to let the empty bucket be again lowered for its next draught of water. Truly, in India, water is all that is required to make the desert blossom like a rose. The fertility of the soil throughout the peninsula is amazing ; though cultivation goes on year after year almost without manure, there seems to result no exhaustion of the soil, no abatement in the fruits of husbandry. Such is the aspect of the country for four or five miles of the road from the Mount to Madras, diversified with occasional hamlets and roadside bazaars with small knots of wayfarers resting and chaffering for refreshments both solid and liquid, and coolies toiling along the broad red road under baskets of country produce carried on their heads, which escape being " pilled " by this constant carrying of loads only by having a circular pad of old rags worn on their crowns.

On nearing Madras the Mount Boad becomes more like a street, though still bordered by avenues of trees NATIVE POPULATION. 9 and occasional "garden houses," now mostly converted into hotels, where dirt, neglect, and bad cooking reign supreme. Now are long lines of shops and bazaars, and the road is crowded with people of all castes and classes, clad and unclad, white (though not many), brown, and black ; fat Chetties and Pillays (money-getting castes of Hindoos) ; well-clad Moodeliars (a higher caste), usually of good family and fair complexion ; greasy Banians (shopkeepers), with bare heads and shaven polls, naked above the waist, with thin cotton cloths wrapped round their loins ; well-featured, rather dissipated-looking Mahome dans in gay turbans and skull-caps, white muslin jackets, and silk, satin, or striped cotton trousers usually of bright colours, crimson, purple, or orange, or else of white linen, the produce formerly of Indian looms, but now, as often as not, of those of Manchester ; half-castes (who, however, prefer the classic designation " Eura sian"), light and puny in figure, Oriental in complexion, and dressed in either cotton checks or white linen jackets and trousers, and with vast pith helmets on their heads.

Here are also met native soldiers in red serge, or in khakee (dust-coloured) uniforms, much looser and more comfortable than those of their fathers and grandfathers, with whom I was acquainted in the "forties." Great numbers of dusky females likewise perambulate the streets, and squat and gossip in the shade of the tulip trees which line the roadway. Most of these women are " withered, and wild in their attire." Having outlived the fleeting graces of girlhood, they are hard in feature, leathery in skin, and shrill and harsh in voice, and their fusty, sunburnt hair lies in hideous tangle on their unkempt heads. But other and more pleasing forms are not rarely met with. The younger women and girls, who take feminine pride in their appearance, and duly comb and braid their well-oiled sable tresses, and adorn their dusky ears and noses with golden gauds, relieve the generally squalid appearance of the throng with their many - coloured jackets and gaily-bordered wrappers.

The Mahomedan women, of whom, by the by, only the old and ugly are allowed to appear in public, are shrouded in flapping sheets of unbleached cotton, and are far from picturesque in their appearance. A very common and painful sight on the Madras roads is that of natives afflicted with elephantiasis. Men so afflicted stump along without apparently feeling in convenienced by the enormous " elephant leg " which they carry with them. Bad quality of drinking water is supposed to have much to do with the prevalence of this complaint. In the Annual Eegister for 1769 is a remarkable entry — "Several large stills, containing 2500 gallons each, are making to be sent to Madrass (sic) in order to render the water of that place, which is brackish, sweet and fresh." By the way, how is it that this terrible disease affects one leg only, the other being slim and sound enough ?