Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/147

Rh ing your time to no purpose. But it is not lost time. It is a good apprenticeship to the newcomer, and serves to make him acquainted with the modes of thought and action common among the people. Every question asked or order given to a servant or workman, and every answer received, is a lesson in the language. Every blunder made and corrected is a preparation for your work among a people so far removed in all their ways from us as are the Hindus.

The housekeeper in India soon finds that he is not to enjoy his dwelling alone; that he must consent to the society of many a family of fellow-lodgers, who do not wait for invitation or introduction, and make up in numbers what they lack in size. The insect tribes of India must not be overlooked in our chapter upon housekeeping. At your first meal you discover that whole armies of ants are hurrying back and forth on the floor with the crumbs that have fallen from the table. Nor are they too honest to enter the meat-safe, if its legs do not stand in vessels of oil or water. The mosquito netting which surrounds your bedstead must be well tucked under the bed, and carefully lifted when you get in, or hordes of hun- Rh