Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/101

Rh vast Mount Meru in its centre towering up six hurdred thousand miles in height, with a base one hundred and twenty-eight thousand miles in circumference. On my once remarking to a well-educated Brahmin that it was singular that no traveller had ever caught sight of this vast peak, he answered that they probably had never travelled far enough to see it.

In Christian schools this din is modified as far as possible; but when the teaching is by natives, trained in the native way, there must and will be noise enough to deafen civilized ears. On Mr. W.'s invitation, I accompanied him in his morning's visit to the schools upon the mission compound. We had to walk but a few steps to the bungalow in which the vernacular school for girls is kept. The school-bungalow is a long low building, with unglazed windows, large doors, a tiled roof and hardbeaten earth-floor spread with mats. As we drew near, the noise subsided, and the girls, about eighty in number, rising from their mats, saluted us with a loud “Good morning, sir," and then stood quietly in two long rows. Behind the second line stood the teachers, each with his turban on his head, one hand holding a serviceable rattan, and the other enveloped in