Association were placed in my hands by your Secretary, Mr. V. C. Moonesawmy Moodeliar, I have spoken to several influential gentlemen who promised to lend their hearty co-operation to the formation of a Branch Association. The delay is owing to the fact that several have left the station to accompany the Chief Commissioner on his tour. When they return you will, I hope, see the Branch Association started, and to you, gentlemen, it must be a matter of congratulation that you are the first to move in this noble undertaking. I thoroughly appreciate your endeavours."

The managers of the Bangalore Literary Union received the thanks of the meeting for the use of the Hall, and after a vote of thanks to the Chairman, the meeting was concluded.

LIFE OF THE AGRICULTURIST.*

WE have received a book, lately published at Bombay, containing a careful account of the social and economic state of the land cultivators of the district of Aurungabad, which lies near Nassik, Khandesh and Ahmednugger (in Bombay). The writer was directed by the Nizam's Government to prepare a report of the agricultural community of the district. in which he had worked for nine years, partly for information for the Famine Commission. It involved much labour of investigation, and it had to be completed at short notice. The result is a collection of valuable statistics in regard to the various classes of cultivators, their expenses in agricultural work, assessment, value of produce, &c. The book however is not confined to statistics; Mr. Furdoonji Jamshedji devotes a chapter to the life and manners of the Kunbis (or cultivators), and he describes their "working calendar" for the year, their relations to the money-lenders, &c., thus giving

*Notes on the Agriculturists of the District of Aurungabad, His Highness the Nizam's dominions. By FURDOONJI JAMSHEDJI, Superintendent Revenue Survey and Assessment, N. W. Division.

a clear picture of the daily life of people of the district. From the chapter on life and manners we shall give a considerable extract, first explaining that the agricultural population may be divided into four classes. 1st, Those engaged in other pursuits than farming, and who therefore only superintend their labourers. 2nd, Those who superintend the work more personally, their families being occupied with farm operations. 3rd, The cultivators proper, who form the majority, and give their whole time to labour in the fields. 4th, Impoverished ryots, who barely gain a subsistance. The third and fourth classes, especially the latter, suffer greatly in bad seasons.

The following is the account of the social condition of these cultivators ::

* * *

"The Kunbi is a harmless, inoffensive creature, simple in his habits, kindly by disposition, and unambitious by nature. He is honest and altogether ignorant of the ways of the world. He knows little of the value of money, and when he happens to earn any he does not know how to keep it. He is satisfied with very little and is contented with his lot however humble. His passions are not strong, he is apathetic and takes things easily,-is never elated with success, nor is he readily prostrated by misfortune. He is a thorough Conservative and has a sincere hatred of innovations. He cherishes a strong love for his watan (hereditary holding and rights), and whenever any trivial dispute arises in connection with these he will fight it out to the very last. He will often suffer great wrongs with patience and resignation, but his indignation is aroused if the least encroachment be made upon his personal watandari rights, though they may yield him no profit, but happen on the contrary to be a tax upon his purse. If the regulated place be not assigned to his bullocks when they walk in procession at the Polá feast,* or if he has been wrongfully preceded

* A feast in honour of the bullocks, when they have a holiday to themselves. They are washed clean, their horns are painted and in the evening adorned with the wife's silver ornaments. Her best sadi is hung on the favourite bullock, and the cattle are led to drum and fife through the village in procession, and are fed on sweet bread steeped in oil.

by another party in offering libations to the pile of fuel that is to be fired at the Holi,t the Kunbi at once imagines that a cruel wrong has been done him, and his peace of mind is disturbed. He will haunt the courts of the taluk and district officials for redress, and neglecting his fields will pursue his object with a perseverance worthy of a better cause.

"The Kunbi's domestic life is happy and cheerful, he is an affectionate husband and a loving father. He is a stranger to the vice of drunkenness, and in every respect his habits are strictly temperate. He is kind and hospitable towards the stranger and the beggar never pleads in vain at his door. In short, the Kunbi, within the scale of his capacities, is endowed with most of the virtues of mankind and exhibits but few vices. We cannot, however, accord to the Kunbi the merit of energy. Industrious he is; he rises early and retires late; in the hottest time of the year he works in the fields under the burning rays of the sun; at other seasons he has often to work in the rain drenched to the skin; he is to be seen in the fields on a bitter winter morning, defying the cold, clad only in his simple coarse kumbli (blanket). Thus his life is one of continued toil and exposure. But, while admitting all this, it cannot be denied that he works apathetically and without intelligent energy of any kind,-that the spirit of emulation does not inspire him with vigour; he is slow in his manner of work; his fields are generally badly ploughed, negligently cultivated, and they are not unfrequently allowed to be choked with weeds. His rival in rural labour, the Purdaysi, excels him in many of these respects, the fields held by this latter class are deeply ploughed, carefully cultivated, and thoroughly weeded.

"The Kunbi women are very industrious, and are perhaps more energetic than the men. Upon them devolves the performance of all the domestic duties. They have to carry water from the river or well, grind corn, prepare the meals, sweep the house and plaster it with liquid clay or cowdung, clean the cooking vessels, wash the linen, and attend to their children. For a part of the day they are also employed on light field work. Besides getting through these multifarious duties, the women of the poorer classes generally manage to find time to gather a head-load + A feast at which oblations are offered to Agni, the god of fire.

of either fuel or grass, which they carry to their own or any other adjoining village for sale. From these hardly acquired earnings they purchase salt, oil and other necessaries for household use, and a little opium, a minute quantity of which they invariably administer to their children as a narcotic. Indeed the Kunbi women takes an honest pride in supplying opium to her children from her personal earnings. If all the women in the family have not enough work on their own holdings some of them go out to labour in the fields of other holders, and their earnings form no mean addition to the income of the Kunbi cultivator. The women work as hard as the men, and fortunate is the cultivator who is blessed with a number of female relatives in his family, for instead of being a burden their industry is a steady source of income to him. With a heavy load on her head, an infant wrapped up and slung to her back, the Kunbi woman of the poorer classes will sturdily tramp some six or seven miles to market, sell the produce of her field there, and from the proceeds buy articles for household consumption: she will then trudge back home in time to prepare the evening meal for the family.

Many of the cultivators of the second class live in tolerably comfortable houses. Outside, facing the street, a front wall shuts in an open court, where the washing is done and the cooking utensils are cleaned. Crossing the court, the principal room is reached through a low door. Most of these houses are built in skeleton form, the roof being supported on wooden posts. These posts, which are generally about six or eight inches square, are filled in by the mud walls forming the main portion of the house, and cannot therefore be seen. * * * A few of these houses are also built of rough stone in mortar, up to a certain height from the foundation, the rest of the wall being made of brick and mud. The roof is constructed in the same manner, but with better materials.

"Besides the principal room there are three or four other little rooms, from ten to fourteen feet square, one being used as a kitchen, another as a store-room, and so on. Two or three common bedsteads, copper and brass cooking utensils, handmills, and so forth, are promiscuously scattered about the apartments.

The rooms are kept clean, being swept daily and frequently plastered with liquid clay or cattle dung. Within the enclosure of the house, or sometimes in one of the fields, a shed is erected, into which the cattle are driven for the night,- one of the members of the family and one of the farm labourers sleeping there.

"The houses of the third class of the cultivators do not materially differ from those of the second class, excepting that they are built of coarser materials, are smaller in size, and do not generally possess open fore-courts.

"The cultivators of the fourth class dwell in wretched hovels, the roofs of which are generally thatched with grass. These huts are often too sinall to accommodate the whole family. A wretched bedstead or two, a handmill for grinding grain, a few brass utensils, some earthen pots ranged one over another, one or two bundles of rags, and fuel for daily consumption, comprise almost all the household goods of this class.

"The domestic economy of the household is regulated by the eldest woman of the family, who makes an excellent housewife. Butter is made from the fresh milk of the dairy, and is sent to the market for sale, while the whey and curds go to improve the family meals. With respect to the cultivators of the first and second classes, the careful housewife sees that a supply of grain calculated to last for a full year is stored in the house, while the vegetables are supplied from the Kunbi's own garden land. The first class of cultivators generally take three meals a day. Breakfast is served out about nine o'clock in the morning. It consists of hot jowari or bajri cakes, a dish of milk curds, and some chutney. Between twelve and one o'clock they take their mid-day meal, which generally consists of jowari or bajri cakes, some dál, and curry made with whey. The supper at night consists of bread and some one kind of home vegetables: the brinjal (egg-plaut) seems to be one of the favourite dishes of the Kunbis about this part of the country. This is sometimes varied with a dish of bayson, made of gram flour. The men and the children take their meals first, and are waited on by the women. They eat off brass plates, called thâlis. When their lords and masters have finished eating the women of the family sit down to their meals and dine out of the same brass plates without taking the trouble to clean