Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/534

468 you are reminded of the command, “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.” A large share of the agricultural labours falls to the lot of the women, who, as in all heathen countries, are made the drudges of the family. Although neat in their villages, the Badagas cannot be praised for cleanliness of person or of dress. As they are in the habit of oiling their bodies, and not in the habit of washing their robes, the latter become so fragrant in the process of time, that a blind man would have no difficulty in telling when a Badaga passed him in the road. True religion makes men seek cleanliness in the outer man as well as holiness in the inner man, while heathenism tends to filthiness in person and dress, as well as to unholiness of soul.

At the funeral of a Burgher of some note, which I attended on another occasion and in another part of the mountains, some of the ceremonies struck me as peculiar. When we arrived at the village, the verandah of the united row of houses composing it was filled with a large company of friends and acquaintances, and many more were assembled in the area in front of the houses, or on the stone wall by which it was enclosed. In the centre of this