centre a peg passes through a hole in the upper stone, and forms the pivot on which the upper stone works. In her left hand she holds a peg, which is fixed on the upper stone, by which she forces it round; the inner surfaces are rough; the gram is put in through a hole in the upper stone, and the flour works out at the edges between the two stones. The ornaments on her ankles are of pewter, and very heavy; they weigh six pounds; her bracelets and armlets of heavy solid brass. The petticoat and the part that goes over the head are only one piece of coarse cloth, bound like a petticoat around the limbs, and the end thereof brought over the head; it is called a sāree. The damsel is a Hindoo, and her garment is sometimes of a very dirty brown colour, and sometimes blue.
When there is much work to be done, two women will sit on the ground and grind the same mill, which is placed between their legs; this is the sort of mill spoken of in Scripture,—"Two women were grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken, and the other left." Every native has a charkhī, and grinds his own corn. English corn mills were erected in Calcutta; they failed, I understand; as the natives objected to the grain brought by all castes of people being ground in the same mill.
The woman is seated beneath the kuthul, the jack or jake tree, (atrocarpus integrifolia); the fruit measures eighteen inches in length, by twenty-three and a half in circumference, and is covered with sharp small cones. The situation of the fruit varies with the age of the tree, being first borne on the branches, then on the trunk, and finally on the roots. The roasted seeds exactly resemble chesnuts: it is a species of bread-fruit. In the sketch, the fruit is placed both on the trunk and on the roots; I have never seen it on both at the same time, and have only thus placed it in the drawing to show the manner in which it grows upon the roots.
"The jack-fruit is upon the tree, and oil on your lips[1]," is a proverb used to express premature precautions.
This fruit has a very glutinous juice, on which account, those
- ↑ Oriental Proverbs, No. 55.
