Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/533

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The villages of the Badagas are built with the houses standing in a row, each adjoining its neighbour, so that one roof covers the whole street. Sometimes a second street is built immediately back of the first, and in the same manner. The eaves of the roof in front are prolonged, so as to cover in a narrow verandah, on which the men sit or lounge when not at work. Before the houses is a level, hard-beaten area, bounded by a low stone wall. This is the thrashing-floor; and, as our visit was in September, it was being used for that purpose. Their mode of procedure struck me as a most lazy substitute for what is known as thrashing to the American farmer. A sheaf was laid on the ground, and a woman, with her cotton mantle wrapped directly around her body beneath the arms, taking a light stick, whipped the heads of the wheat until they were empty–all the while laughing, talking, and joking; while the men looked indolently on, or separated the grain from the chaff by pouring it from a basket to the ground in the wind. Some of their grains are thrashed by driving oxen over them on a circular hard-beaten floor. As you see the oxen stooping to take up a mouthful of straw while they walk their monotonous round,