his face against the
stereotyped custom, and by their elaborate salaams and outstretched
palms indicate what is expected of you. The disappointed ones follow
you down the carriage-drive reminding you of your neglect. When I have
sometimes warned servants, who were rather officious in their
attentions, that having no money I should not be able to give them
anything at the conclusion of my visit, there has generally been a
perceptible falling off in their activity. Christian servants do not
clamour in this way, and give a pleasant "tank you" when they are
given something, and take great care of an impecunious wayfarer.

When Hindu boys ask for pictures, whether you give them one or
several, they at once beg for additional ones; and however good the
pictures may be, they will often hand them back immediately and say
they want better ones. It is only when they have learnt by experience
that these tactics generally result in their getting no pictures at
all, that they moderate their demands.

CHAPTER XXXIX

PROVERBIAL SAYINGS ABOUT INDIA

Inaccurate statements. Village trades dependent on demand.
Platforms for the bird-scarers. Shop lamps of the city.
Supposed ascetics. Uncertainty of the monsoon; how it comes.
Cold in India; how an Indian deals with it; he cannot work
if he is cold. Englishmen and the Indian sun.

There are a number of sayings and statements about India and its
people which are either inaccurate or misleading, but which have
become almost proverbial, and which are copied from book to book, and
conveyed to new-comers by word of mouth, and their often mistaken
impressions of many simple things are partly caused by the erroneous
expressions and descriptions which they have heard or read. It takes
the first several years of a residence in India to gradually unlearn
the things which have been wrongly learnt. The stray visitor does not
stay long enough to get his view straightened out, and when he returns
to write his book about India he repeats the off-told tale.

It is often stated in books that in each village a representative of
every trade which supplies the ordinary wants of the inhabitants is to
be found--such as the barber, carpenter, blacksmith, potter, cobbler,
etc. But there is no rule about this, and it depends, just as it does
in English villages, on the size of the place and the demands of
trade. In many villages there is no resident barber, and the people
de