tree, and throws the other to his wife, who goes to a distance and draws
it tight. Then the man breaks off a heavy bunch of ripe nuts, and
hitching it on the rope lets it go. It shoots down with such velocity
that it would knock his wife down did she not know how to dodge it
skilfully and break its force in a bend of the rope.

When all the bunches are on the ground, the man begins to sway his body
violently till the tender and supple palm is swinging like a pendulum
and almost striking the trees on either side. Watching his opportunity,
the man grasps one of these and transfers himself to it with the
nimbleness of a monkey. In this way he makes an aerial journey round the
garden and avoids the fatigue of climbing up and down every separate
tree.

The gathered betel nuts soon find their way to the warehouses of fat
Bunias at the coast ports, where they are peeled and prepared and sorted
and piled in great heaps according to quality, and finally shipped in
_pattimars_ and _cotias_ and coasting steamers, and so disseminated over
the length and breadth of the land to be the comforters of poor and
rich.

It only remains to say that the betel nut is not used in the East for
tooth-powder, though the natives believe that the practice of chewing it
saves them from toothache. When they use any dentifrice it is generally
charcoal, and their toothbrush is either the forefinger or a fibrous
stick chewed at the end till it becomes like a stiff paintbrush. But
whatever he may use for the purpose, the Hindu cleans his teeth every
morning, and that most thoroughly, before he will allow food to pass his
lips, and the whiteness and soundness of his teeth are an object of envy
to Englishmen.

XVII

A HINDU FESTIVAL

Poets may sing,

"Let the ape and tiger die,"

but they are not quite dead yet, only caged, and where is the man in
whose bosom there lurks no wish that he could open the door just once in
a way and let them have a frisk? In the East there is no hypocrisy about
the matter. The tiger's den is barred and locked, and the British
Government keeps the key, but the ape has an appointed day in the year
on which he shall have his outing. They call it the _Holi_, which is a
misnomer, for of all Hindu festivals this is the most unholy; but of
that anon.

I asked a Brahmin what this festival commemorated, and he said he did
not know. He knew how to observe it, which was the main thing. Of
course, there is an expla