he clods, rolls the sticks, leaves, and grass
roots together, brings the refuse and dirt to the surface, and again
levels the soil, and prevents the wind from taking away the moisture.
The land now looks fine and fresh and level, but very dirty. A host of
coolies are put on the fields with small sticks in their hands. All the
Dangur women and children are there, with men, women, and children of
all the poorest classes from the villages round, whom the attractions
of wages or the exertions of headmen Tokedars and Zillahdars have
brought together to earn their daily bread. With the sticks they beat
and break up every clod, leaving not one behind the size of a walnut.
They collect all the refuse, weeds, and dirt, which are heaped up and
burnt on the field, and so they go on till the zeraats look as clean as
a nobleman's garden, and you would think that surely this must satisfy
the fastidious eye of the planter. But no, our work is not half begun
yet.

It is rather a strange sight to see some four or five hundred coolies
squatted in a long irregular line, chattering, laughing, shouting, or
squabbling. A dense cloud of dust rises over them, and through the dim
obscurity one hears the ceaseless sound of the thwack! thwack! as their
sticks rattle on the ground. White dust lies thick on each swarthy
skin; their faces are like faces in a pantomime. There are the flashing
eyes and the grinning rows of white teeth; all else is clouded in thick
layers of dust, with black spots and stencillings showing here and
there like a picture in sepia and chalk. As they near the end of the
field they redouble their thwacking, shuffle along like land-crabs, and
while the Mates, Peons, and Tokedars shout at them to encourage them,
they raise a roar loud enough to wake the dead. The dust rises in
denser clouds, the noise is deafening, a regular mad hurry-scurry, a
wild boisterous scramble ensues, and amid much chaffing, noise, and
laughter, they scramble off again to begin another length of land; and
so the day's work goes on.

The planter has to count his coolies several times a-day, or they would
cheat him. Some come in the morning, get counted, and their names put
on the roll, and then go off till paytime comes round. Some come for an
hour or two, and send a relative in the evening when the pice are being
paid out, to get the wage of work they have not done. All are paid in
pice--little copper bits of coin, averaging about sixty-four to the