grass walls, connected with thin battens of bamboo.
The roof is bamboo and thatch. Thatch fences surround all the little
courtyards. Leaves, refuse, cowdung fuel, and wood are piled up round
every hut. At each door is an open air fire, which smoulders all day. A
stray puff of wind makes an inquisitive visit round the corner, and
before one can half realise the catastrophe, the village is on fire.
Then each only thinks of his own goods; there is no combined effort to
stay the flames. In the hot west winds of March, April, and May, these
fires are of very frequent occurrence. In Bhaugulpore, I have seen,
from my verandah, three villages on fire at one and the same time. In
some parts of Oudh, among the sal forests, village after village is
burnt down annually, and I have seen the same catastrophe visit the
same village several times in the course of one year. These fires arise
from pure carelessness, sheer apathy, and laziness.

Sanitary precautions too are very insufficient; practically there are
none. Huge unsightly water-holes, filled during the rains with the
drainage of all the dung-heaps and mounds of offal and filth that
abound in the village, swelter under the hot summer sun. They get
covered with a rank green scum, and if their inky depths be stirred,
the foulest and most fearful odours issue forth. In these filthy pools
the villagers often perform their ablutions; they do not scruple to
drink the putrid water, which is no doubt a hotbed and regular nursery
for fevers, and choleraic and other disorders.

Many home readers are but little acquainted with the Indian village
system, and I shall devote a chapter to the description of a Hindoo
village, with its functionaries, its institutions, its inhabitants, and
the more marked of their customs and avocations.

CHAPTER XIII.

Description of a native village.--Village functionaries.--The barber.
--Bathing habits.--The village well.--The school.--The children.--The
village bazaar.--The landowner and his dwelling.--The 'Putwarrie' or
village accountant.--The blacksmith.--The 'Punchayiet' or village jury
system.--Our legal system in India.--Remarks on the administration of
justice.

A typical village in Behar is a heterogeneous collection of thatched
huts, apparently set down at random--as indeed it is, for every one
erects his hut wherever whim or caprice leads him, or wherever he can
get a piece of vacant land. Groves of feathery bamboos and broad-leaved