Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 333

FILLING MENIAL OFFICES
293
them as coolies or porters, and pay
highly, because custom-house officers have orders
native princes, employ
them very
This
to let everything that they carry pass through free.
though arduous, is by no means the least lucrative.
Those who follow it travel almost free of expense, for along
every main road there are numerous hostelries called
chuttrams, where Brahmins alone have the right to lodge,
and where they are fed gratuitously. The revenues which
these establishments derive from their landed property,
calling,
and the abundant alms which they receive, amply com-
pensate the persons who manage them, and who are Brah-
mins also, for the expenses entailed by the hospitality
which they extend to their brethren.
The great facility with which they can everywhere intro-
duce themselves under all sorts of disguises, without exciting
the smallest suspicion, and the adroitness with which they
can play all sorts of parts and extricate themselves from
the most difficult positions, render them peculiarly well
fitted to act as spies in time of war, always supposing that
you can be sure that they are not serving both parties,
a circumstance which often happens without any one being
the wiser.
Poverty or self-interest sometimes reduces them
to occupy positions which are very derogatory to their
Thus sometimes they are seen acting as
illustrious birth.
dancing-masters to courtesans attached to the service of
but when they are
the temples.
Others become cooks
reduced to this latter calling, and serve masters of inferior
caste, these latter undertake never to touch the vessels
which their cook uses in preparing the food. The cook
will serve the food when it is ready, but will not remove
what is left after the meal is over. What the Brahmin
cook prepares and touches is pure for his master, but
what the master touches is impure and would defile the
cook.
Some even demean themselves so far as to be
washermen and water-carriers for persons of their own
caste, and even undertake to perform the very meanest
requirements of domestic service.
Superstition, which exercises such an important influence
throughout the whole of India, also affords great resources
;
An illness,
to those in search of a means of livelihood.
a fall, a law-suit, a fresh undertaking, a newly built house.