Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/142

116 bed or dress a babe—“What does she know about such duties! She is turney-katchy, not ayah!" It would be like asking a horse to catch mice and the cat to draw a carriage.

It will be readily understood that you must have several servants, or give up your time to household cares. The pay of servants is small, and they board and lodge themselves away from their employer's house. A cook (a man) can be hired for three dollars a month, (though more is given to an accomplished cook by English gentlemen;) and his female assistant, the turney-katchy, receives a dollar and a half a month, with which she will support a husband and children. The simplicity and cheapness of their food, and the small amount of clothing, fuel, and protection from weather needed in this climate, enable them to live on these very small sums. So few are their wants, and so great their preference of idleness to labour, that a whole family will depend upon one member for support, without troubling themselves to seek employment while he can give them rice and curry.

The trial of Indian housekeepers does not consist in the lack of suitable furniture, food, and dress, so much as in the deceit and dis-