espects it is a cumbersome and inconvenient sort of headgear,
and people, especially ladies, are tempted rashly to discard it. Many
ailments, and sometimes serious illnesses, quite apart from actual
sunstroke, may be traced to careless exposure to the sun's rays.

CHAPTER XL

INDIAN UNREST

The umbrella in India; now universal; carried by the police.
The boycott of foreign goods. Political excitement.
Resentment in the Plague Refuge Camp; how it was overcome.
The agency of the Church. An improved type of Hindu
schoolboy; how they dress; their manners; their interest in
religion. Moral teaching in schools. Conceit of some young
students.

The umbrella always has been, and is still to some extent, an
important feature of life in the East. Its importance is derived more
from its recognition as an emblem of dignity than from its practical
utility. It was one of the prerogatives of kings and nobles to have a
gorgeous umbrella borne over their head by one of their retainers. It
is only the gradual levelling up of classes that has made umbrellas
almost universal. Even up to quite modern times there were certain
parts of Poona City where Brahmins live, in which a low-caste man
would not have dared to walk with an umbrella. To do so would have
been regarded as an act of insolent presumption.

But when the barrier of prohibitive custom had once been levelled,
umbrellas came in with a rush, and they are now used to an almost
ludicrous extent. A mason may be seen sitting at work on a wall with
his umbrella in one hand and his trowel in the other. Farm labourers
out in the country, seated on the pole of their bullock-cart, or men
perched on the top of loads of wood in great cities, will enjoy both
the dignity and the shade of their outspread umbrella in the hot
season. That it is assumed in some cases more for dignity than for
actual need, is shown by the readiness with which it is discarded when
convenient, and its bearer sits cheerfully bareheaded in the blazing
sun.

The Bombay police are given umbrellas during the rainy season, and as
the rainfall in that city is very heavy, they are a necessary though
not a convenient burden for a policeman to bear. In Calcutta they go a
step farther, and the umbrellas are served out during the hot season
also, and the police are provided with an arrangement which looks
something like braces worn outside, on to which they hang the umbrella
whe