88 WONDERFUL CONSTITUTION OF THE HINDU
goats and sheep , and their young , added to the one or two calves they are able to sell from time to time , bring in a small income . Two or three milch-kine and one or two buffaloes supply them with a certain quantity of butter for four or five months in the year , of which they make good use . The sale of pigs , fowls , eggs , & c , also contributes to their support , and even enables them to save for future needs , or to meet matrimonial expenses . Nevertheless , after a bad harvest numbers of these cultivators are reduced to the same state of want as those below them , and are obliged to have recourse to the same shifts .
In these times of distress the Hindus have only their wonderful constitutions to fall back upon . Accustomed from their earliest infancy to privations of every kind , they are able to keep body and soul together on the smallest
pittance of food . A pound a day of millet flour , boiled in water and reduced to a thin gruel , is enough to prevent
a family of five or six persons from dying of hunger . With
no food besides this gruel and water the majority of the natives manage to keep hale and hearty for months together .
Furthermore , they possess the no less valuable faculty of sleeping at will . An idle Hindu invariably goes to sleep , and so does the man who has nothing to eat . If the homely proverb ' he who sleeps dines ' can be taken literally , the Hindus certainly find consolation in it in times of scarcity .
The fourth class comprises those whose property varies in value from £ 50 to £ 100 sterling , and I should say it forms three-fortieths of the population . These people live in comfort , being chiefly Brahmins or well-to-do Sudras .
They all keep servants belonging to the lowest class to aid them in cultivation . Besides this , some of them are rich enough to embark on commercial speculations in connexion with grain or other commodities , while others lend small sums of money at high interest . This class provides the villages with their Sudra headmen , and these men are at the same time the largest holders of Government lands .
They also exercise in their villages the functions of collectors of revenue , petty magistrates , and public arbitrators . As
they are usually held responsible by Government for the due payment of all taxes levied on their villages , they are