by themselves. The
_Dornes_ drag from the village any animal that happens to die. They
generally pursue the handicraft of basket making, or mat making, and
the _Dorne tolah_ can always be known by the pigs and fowls prowling
about in search of food, and the _Dorne_ and his family splitting up
bamboo, and weaving mats and baskets at the doors of their miserable
habitation. To the higher castes both pigs arid fowls are unclean and
an abomination. _Moosahms, Doosadhs_, and other poor castes, such as
_Dangurs_, keep however an army of gaunt, lean, hungry-looking pigs.
These may be seen rooting and wallowing in the marshes when the rice
has been cut, or foraging among the mango groves, to pick up any stray
unripe fruit that may have escaped the keen eyes of the hungry and
swarming children.

There is yet another small _tolah_ or suburb, called the _Kusbee
tolah_. Here live the miserable outcasts who minister to the worst
passions of our nature. These degraded beings are banished from the
more respectable portions of the community; but here, as in our own
highly civilised and favoured land, vice hovers by the side of virtue,
and the Hindoo village contains the same elements of happiness and
misery, profligacy and probity, purity and degradation, as the fine
home cities that are a name in the mouths of men.

Every village forms a perfect little commonwealth; it contains all the
elements of self-existence; it is quite a little commune, so far as
social life is concerned. There is a hereditary blacksmith, washerman,
potter, barber, and writer. The _dhobee_, or washerman, can always be
known by the propinquity of his donkeys, diminutive animals which he
uses to transport his bundle of unsavoury dirty clothes to the pool or
tank where the linen is washed. On great country roads you may often
see strings of donkeys laden with bags of grain, which they transport
from far-away villages to the big bazaars; but if you see a laden
donkey near a village, be sure the _dhobee_ is not far off.

Here as elsewhere the _hajam_, or barber, is a great gossip, and
generally a favourite. He uses no soap, and has a most uncouth-looking
razor, yet he shaves the heads, beards, moustaches, and armpits of his
customers with great deftness. The lower classes of natives shave the
hair of the head and of the armpits for the sake of cleanliness and for
other obvious reasons. The higher classes are very regular in their
ablutions; every morning, be the