Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 8.djvu/158

 GRASSCUTTERS. (444)

HE women grasscutters of Madras are a very industrious and useful race. Many of them are attached to cavalry regiments with regular pay, and their business is to furnish daily a bundle of grass or grass roots, which has to be measured by the native inspector before it is passed into the stables. The inspector shown in the Photograph is evidently engaged in this duty, and his measuring instrument is hung about his neck. In the monsoon, when grass sprouts up in apparently the driest places, the work is comparatively light; but in the hot weather, when only the roots of the peculiar grass which forms the sward by banks of streams are available, they have to be dug up with a peculiar hoe, which involves hard work. In general, too, it lies at a distance, and the bundle which is to constitute the food of the horse for twenty-four hours has to be carried home. These grass roots, which spread thickly underground, are of a peculiarly sweet, succulent character, and a comparatively small quantity keeps a horse in excellent condition. The grasscutters are frequently the wives or daughters of the saises or grooms, and the pay of both supports the family very comfortably. Grasscutters and saises or grooms are usually of the very lowest caste, but occasionally Mussulmans may be found among the former. If the regiment in which they serve has to march or go on service, the grooms and grasscutters follow; and it. is surprising, even after a long march, to find the usual bundle of grass ready by the evening. Almost all private persons keep grasscutters for the sake of their horses, the native hay, or dry grass cut after the grass is quite dry, being by no means nutritive. The wages of the grasscutter is or used to be four rupees, or eight shillings a month, but it may now be more.