donkey near a village, be sure the _dhobee_ is not far off.

Here as elsewhere the _hajam_, or barber, is a great gossip, and
generally a favourite. He uses no soap, and has a most uncouth-looking
razor, yet he shaves the heads, beards, moustaches, and armpits of his
customers with great deftness. The lower classes of natives shave the
hair of the head and of the armpits for the sake of cleanliness and for
other obvious reasons. The higher classes are very regular in their
ablutions; every morning, be the water cold or warm, the Rajpoot and
Brahmin, the respectable middle classes, and all in the village who lay
any claim to social position, have their _goosal_ or bath. Some hie to
the nearest tank or stream; at all hours of the day, at any ferry or
landing stage, you will see swarthy fine-looking fellows up to mid
waist in the water, scrubbing vigorously their bronzed arms, and neck
and chest. They clean their teeth with the end of a stick, which they
chew at one extremity, till they loosen the fibres, and with this
improvised toothbrush and some wood ashes for paste, they make them
look as white and clean as ivory.

There is generally a large masonry well in the middle of the village,
with a broad smooth _pucca_ platform all round it. It has been built by
some former father of the hamlet, to perpetuate his memory, to fulfil a
vow to the gods, perhaps simply from goodwill to his fellow townsmen.
At all events there is generally one such in every village. It is
generally shadowed by a huge _bhur, peepul_, or tamarind tree. Here may
always be seen the busiest sight in the village. Pretty young women
chatter, laugh, and talk, and assume all sorts of picturesque attitudes
as they fill their waterpots; the village matrons gossip, and sometimes
quarrel, as they pull away at the windlass over the deep cool well. On
the platform are a group of fat Brahmins nearly nude, their lighter