Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/545

Rh have little notion, and in morals and intellect are exceedingly degraded. By the Hindus they are looked upon as savages. The citizens of Madras or Calcutta would feel themselves greatly scandalized if they knew that they were classed with these degraded tribes, whom they view as we do the American Indians or the South Sea Islanders; and they would revolt at the idea of the atrocities of the Khonds being considered a part or a representation of their system and acts.

The cultivation of the Erulars consists in scratching the earth with a stick, and throwing in the seed. When the grain is ripe, they take up their abode in its neighbourhood, and live upon it until it is gone. The grain is parched, pounded, baked on a hot stone into coarse cakes, and eaten. They lay up nothing; and hence, when this is consumed, they wander about the jungles in search of berries and roots. Deserted mothers, that they may be free to search for something with which to satisfy the cravings of nature, will even murder their own infants. Poor Erulars! wretched children of the Indian jungle! Degraded, depraved, brutalized, well do they deserve their name! Irul signifies darkness; and theirs is the gross dark-