heavy brass rings on their arms--chatter away, make believe to be shy,
and show off a thousand coquettish airs. Their very toes are bedizened
with brass rings; and long festoons of red, white, and blue beads hang
pendent round their necks.

In the evening the line is re-formed before the bungalow. A huge bag of
copper coin is produced. The old Lallah, or writer, with spectacles on
nose, squats down in the middle of the assembled coolies, and as each
name is called, the mates count out the pice, and make it over to the
coolie, who forthwith hurries off to get his little purchases made at
the village Bunneah's shop; and so, on a poor supper of parched peas,
or boiled rice, with no other relish but a pinch of salt, the poor
coolie crawls to bed, only to dream of more hard work and scanty fare
on the morrow. Poor thing! a village coolie has a hard time of it!
During the hot months, if rice be cheap and plentiful, he can jog along
pretty comfortably, but when the cold nights come on, and he cowers in
his wretched hut, hungry, half naked, cold, and wearied, he is of all
objects most pitiable. It is, however, a fact little creditable to his
more prosperous fellow-countrymen, that he gets better paid for his
labour in connection with factory work, than he does in many cases for
tasks forced on him by the leading ryots of the village in connection
with their own fields.

[Illustration: COOLIE'S HUT.]

This first cleaning of the fields--or, as it is called, _Oustennie_--being
finished, the lands are all again re-ploughed, re-harrowed, and then
once more re-cleaned by the coolies, till not a weed or spot of dirt
remains; and till the whole surface is uniformly soft, friable, moist,
and clean. We have now some breathing time; and as this is the most