Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/513

Rh and are built with two semicircular ends of upright planks, and an arched roof thatched with straw. They are usually placed three or four together on the skirt of a piece of woodland, with a sloping pasture before them, and form a picturesque addition to the scenery of the hills. They are poor places for residence, however, as they are but about twelve feet deep by eight feet wide, without any chimney for the escape of smoke. The door, which is the only mode of entrance both for air and light, as well as for the family, is but thirty inches in height, and less in width. It is well that the Todars are not given to corpulence, or they might find it difficult to enter their homes, or, when once in, to get out again.

Near the house in which a Todar family lives always stands another of the same construction, used as a dairy, and surrounded by a stone wall; and, close by the dairy, a stone enclosure for the herd of buffaloes. This herd constitutes the whole property of the Todar patriarch, (for they will not even keep cows, so highly reverenced by the Hindus,) and to tend and milk the buffaloes, and churn their milk into butter and ghee, is his sole occupation. Their mode of life is exceedingly simple, as they eat no