own ideas. The English type of
bungalow is not really suited to Indian taste. A dark, windowless
house with an earthen floor is where the ordinary Indian feels most at
home. The first thing that Babaji did when left to himself was to put
iron bars to the windows to keep out thieves, and to close in the
fronts of his verandahs in the same way, so that they looked like
cages in the Zoological Gardens. Most Indians live in constant dread
of nocturnal thieves, and their fear is not entirely without
justification. In years gone by the raids made by robbers in villages
were sufficiently alarming. These depredators went to great lengths in
their efforts to induce women to declare where their gold and silver
ornaments were hidden. The threat to cut off their nose was not an
empty one, if we can trust the statement that in those days the sight
of a woman thus disfigured was not uncommon.

More efficient police supervision has done much to prevent these
organised raids, although they are still not unknown. But ordinary
night thieves are apt to come along wherever they think there is
plunder, and this type of Indian thief is as skilful in reality as he
is proverbially said to be. The habit of hiding money, instead of
investing it usefully, or the common custom of turning it into
ornaments for women, makes the visit of a thief to the house of a
well-to-do Indian likely to be lucrative.

When people moved out from the city because of plague and camped in
the surrounding villages, they were much troubled by thieves. The
refugees were afraid to leave their valuables in their shut-up homes
in the city, lest the house should be raided in their absence; and
yet, lodging in tents and frail huts, it was very difficult to
circumvent the robbers. Many people camped as close as they could get
to the Mission settlement at Yerandawana, under the idea that thieves
avoid the neighbourhood of Europeans. Nevertheless an extraordinarily
clever robbery took place in a hut exactly opposite the Mission
gateway. This hut was built of split bamboos tied to a wooden
framework and then plastered with mud. A house of this kind,
carefully put together, affords good shelter, and when the mud peels
off it can easily be repaired. A widow with her sister and little
daughter lived in this shelter during plague time. Their fortunes were
invested in the precarious form of personal jewellery. At night these
ornaments were put into two boxes, which they placed und