importing ship-loads of blocks of ice from
America. The idea was developed, and about the year 1840 a commercial
scheme took shape. A large circular building was erected close to the
sea-beach as a reservoir for the imported ice, which sailing-ships
brought in huge blocks from the western world; and for a number of
years the scheme was a commercial success. The ice was sold at four
annas a pound, and many people in Madras remember the time when it was
the only ice that was to be had, and large quantities of it were sold.
With the eventual institution of ice-factories, which could supply ice
at a much cheaper rate, the enterprise came to an end, and for a
considerable time the ice-reservoir was out of use. Then somebody
bought it, and put windows into the walls, and turned it into a
residence; and meanwhile, as a result of the construction of the
harbour, the sea receded a long way down the Ice-house shore. As a
residence, however, a house of so strange a shape was not in request;
and eventually some benevolent Hindus turned it into a free hostel for
any preacher or religious teacher of repute, whatever his creed, who
might be temporarily staying in Madras, especially if he felt that he
had a message to deliver to the city. But the reputable prophets who
availed themselves of the proffered hospitality were few; and the
'Ice-house' had a deserted look. A few years ago the Madras Government
acquired it for the excellent purpose of a 'Brahman Widows' Home' for
Brahman girl-widows at school. This is the purpose that it now
fulfils. From Ice-house to child-widows' home! It is a great
transformation--from a house whose chambers were stored with hard
blocks of cold ice to a house whose chambers are aglow with the warmth
of young life! There is room to hope that in course of time the
Child-widows' Home will have outlived its purpose--in the time when
gentler ideals will prevail, and the sorrows of child-widows will have
ceased, and the institution will no longer be a need.

CHAPTER XV

'NO MEAN CITY'

It is less than three hundred years since Mr. Francis Day, seeking a
likely spot for a trading settlement, surveyed the desolate sea-beach
near the mouth of the Cooum, and decided that the settlement should be
there. A few scattered huts on the shore and a few catamarans out at
sea were the only signs of human life, and the breakers that sported
on the beach were the only manifestations of activity. But the years
have g