of cocoanut fiber, the skins of potatoes and a little lime. They
take a leaf, smear it with the lime paste, which is intended
to increase the saliva, and then wrap it around the powder of
the betel nut. Natives stop at these stands, drop a copper, pick
up one of these folded leaves, put it in their mouths, and go
off chewing, and spitting out saliva as red as blood. Strangers
are frequently attracted by dark red stains upon pavements and
floors which look as if somebody had suffered from a hemorrhage or
had opened an artery, but they are only traces of the chewers of
the betel nut. The habit is no more harmful than chewing tobacco.
The influence of the juice is slightly stimulating to the nerves,
but not injurious, although it is filthy and unclean.

It is a popular impression that the poor of India live almost
exclusively upon rice, which is very cheap and nourishing, hence
it is possible for a family to subsist upon a few cents a day.
This is one of the many delusions that are destroyed when you
visit the country. Rice in India is a luxury that can be afforded
only by the people of good incomes, and throughout four-fifths of
the country is sold at prices beyond the reach of common working
people. Sixty per cent. of the population live upon wheat, barley,
fruit, various kinds of pulses and maize. Rice can be grown only in
hot and damp climates, where there are ample means of irrigation,
and only where the conditions of soil, climate and water supply
allow its abundant production does it enter into the diet of the
working classes. Three-fourths of the people are vegetarians,
and live upon what they produce themselves.

The density of the population is very great, notwithstanding
the enormous area of the empire, being an average of 167 to the