Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/487

Rh doubtless a new-comer would see much to interest and amuse him. A group of girls assembled under a mango-tree, and throwing up sticks and stones to knock down the green fruit, would carry his memory back to the apple-orchard of his fatherland; but the smile at the amusement of the little ones would turn to sadness when, a few steps farther on, his eye caught sight of a heathen temple, or, going a little farther still, he saw a tree with a low stone wall built about its trunk, and worshipped as a god. He would notice two little sheds built of bamboo and thatched with palm-leaves, with a screen in front, through which a bamboo pipe projects. Within sits a Brahmin, paid by some charitable person to supply passers-by with water, or, perhaps, with the greater luxury of buttermilk. He has his water-pot and cup beside him; but from these the traveller must not drink, for then it would be so defiled that the next thirsty passer-by could not drink from it. The Brahmin inside pours the water into the pipe, and the applicant, uniting his hands in the form of a trough, receives it as it falls, and drinks. Sometimes the bamboo trough is dispensed with, and the occupant of the shed pours the water into the hands of