Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/286

244 continued his instructions, and gave to applicants books in Tamil and Telugu. But it was not an easy matter to have any retirement, as the people crowded around us, and stared most assiduously. I accordingly retreated to the grove, and sat down at the foot of a spreading tree. Fatigued with speaking for hours, Mr. S. followed me, and sat down to rest a while in the grateful shade. But the crowd was not to be deprived of its entertainment. The people followed him, and presently they were seated in a group upon the ground, arranged in a semicircle, of which we were the centre. We should have been glad to have been relieved of our eminence, and, ceasing to be lions, have relapsed into commonplace personages; but that could not be. Resigning ourselves, therefore, to our distinction, we entered into conversation with these simple villagers, who now became quite sociable.

After telling them something of our own country, of its fruits and seasons, we asked them as to their circumstances. This led to the unburdening of a sore complaint, though in a good-humoured way, of the oppressive taxation by which they are ground to the earth. They said that between the half taken