Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/284

242 he sees many a barren waste, with scarce a blade of grass to conceal its nakedness, or a shrub to screen the huge ant-hills, with, it may be a solitary palm, adding to the sense of desolation, and though ignorance and vice, idolatry and poverty, are perennial dwellers in every town, the picture is not all dark.

There are fair spots in torrid India, and among its people there are joyous faces and kindly feelings. He who has seen India only in its crowded and corrupt cities, in its seaports and its courts, knows little of the masses scattered through the country. The visitor of the villages, though he finds much, very much, to make his heart sad and his soul faint for the sins of the people, yet finds a light as well as a shade to the picture.

The cawing of the crows waked us at an early hour on the morning after our arrival at the mundapam of Varey-punthal, (the arbour of bananas;) but already were many of the creatures of God rejoicing in the morning light. Bright green parroquets were flitting with screams of joy from bough to bough in the grove on our right, and there, too, was the gentle cooyil, with its soft, murmuring note, expressing its more quiet happiness. Pools