Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . presumethe poor young girl who was going to the home of her agedhusband, whom perhaps she had never seen, felt as melan-choly as the solemn procession seemed to indicate. The extreme pov-erty of the people isperhaps nowhere moreindicated than by the (/-jj|women whose businessit is to pick up every v/particle of manure from tthe streets, and to make •it into flat cakes ( Brat-ty as it is called),which they dry uponthe sides of the wallsof the houses. Then itis picked off and soldfor fuel. Hundreds
Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . presumethe poor young girl who was going to the home of her agedhusband, whom perhaps she had never seen, felt as melan-choly as the solemn procession seemed to indicate. The extreme pov-erty of the people isperhaps nowhere moreindicated than by the (/-jj|women whose businessit is to pick up every v/particle of manure from tthe streets, and to make •it into flat cakes ( Brat-ty as it is called),which they dry uponthe sides of the wallsof the houses. Then itis picked off and soldfor fuel. Hundreds ofthese women with high-piled baskets of thisfuel are met with every-where as one goes aboutthe streets. The punkah-wallah, too, or the man who pulls thehuge fans with which every office, dining-room, parlor, andchurch is provided, is a well-known character in Madras, asin all Southern India. I must say I have seen days in NewYork and Boston when a punkah was as necessary as iteven is in hot Madras. This occupation often descends fromfather to son, for many generations, and the true punkah-. bratty making. 334 EXTREMES OF SOCIAL LIFE. wallah, by instinct and training becomes so expert that,tying the string to his toe, he will go to sleep and still keepjerking away at the cord to fan the hot brows of the Euro-peans within, who may be dining, or reading, or writing, orsleeping, as the case may be. In the streets of Madras I have frequently seen thewomen and dogs lying together in the glaring bright sun-light, one apparently as happy and as unconscious of degra-dation as the other. On the other hand, many among these people are welleducated, and bright and intellectual. The magnificent lawcourts are crowded with native lawyers, who are as finea body of men in their gowns and wigs as can be met within any hall of justice in the world. Nowhere does one meet with greater extremes of sociallife. Nowhere is there greater need or greater scope for thelife-giving religion of Christ th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade189, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
