Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/277

Rh ever, which you meet with everywhere in India.

While we spoke to the people, my attention was attracted to a knot of simple countrymen, apparently strangers. They sat together on the mat, listening to all that was said, and nodding to one another their approval of the truth. “It is all true! all true!" said they. “If we were rid of the Brahmins, we might go over, but they can crush whomsoever they please.” This, alas! is too true; and multitudes are restrained from embracing Christianity by this fear of priestly power.

While we were thus engaged, a party of the villagers were busily employed, within a few paces of us, in getting up warp for the weaver's loom. Warping mills being unknown to the Hindu, this, as all other mechanical operations, is effected by unaided labour. A number of small stakes are fixed a few feet apart, along a distance of some forty yards, and the thread is carried between the stakes by the warpers running round and round them with their spindles till the work is done. The warp is dressed with congey, a paste of boiled rice. The weaving is almost as simple an operation as the preparation of the warp. The loom is