United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The refugees were afraid to leave their valuables in their shut-up homes in the city, lest the house should be raided in their absence; and yet, lodging in tents and frail huts, it was very difficult to circumvent the robbers. Many people camped as close as they could get to the Mission settlement at Yerandawana, under the idea that thieves avoid the neighbourhood of Europeans.
They are only what we in England would call a shed, but they provide as much shelter as the climate demands, and they are a great boon to the many who travel the roads on business or pleasure. The Yerandawana rest-house is often thronged with people, because it is so near Poona that they can get some hours sleep, and yet get into market early.
His appearance, as he ambles along in shabby attire with his letter-bag over his shoulder, is not calculated to inspire confidence. But the Yerandawana letters are picked up in the evening by one of these primitive post-runners, and no instance is on record of any letter failing to reach its destination. Post offices are at present only to be found in a few of the more important villages.
There is a wide stretch of land between the Mission field at Yerandawana and the low range of hills on which the boys are so fond of rambling. It is only water which is wanted to make this tract productive. Dependent as it now is on the uncertain rainfall of the monsoon, an occasional and ragged crop, which often never comes into ear, is all that it ever produces.
It took some years to secure a plot of ground for the burial of Christians in the village of Yerandawana. A cemetery is not welcomed as a near neighbour in any part of the world, and in India particularly there are many additional prejudices which have to be taken into account.
Nor does it tend to elevate the character to sit on a mud floor dozing in the dark, or telling scandalous stories with the children drinking in every word. By way of contrast, I recall the country home of a Brahmin doctor, who has built himself a house at Yerandawana as a haven of refuge in time of plague. It is surrounded by a little garden, radiant with flowers.
The person who issues the invitation is, so the card informs me, "Sardar Khanbahadur Kazi Sayed Azimodin Gulamodin Pirzade Inamdar." His real name is Azimodin. The rest could be dispensed with. He is the Mohammedan chief of Yerandawana. Part of the revenue of that village was, at some distant date, allotted to a mosque in Poona City.
Although farmers all the world over are conservative and opposed to novelties, they generally end by adopting improvements when they have realised that they are remunerative. Yerandawana village being close to Poona City, the farmers can procure for their land the street sweepings, which are sold by the municipality at so much a load.
When the church at Yerandawana was building, the first indication that its unusual design commended itself to the Indian mind was that passers-by began to stop and look at it. You need to be familiar with the Indian's state of oblivion concerning his surroundings, already referred to, in order to understand the force of this.
When the Mission first settled in Yerandawana there was no collection of letters at all. The English mail letters, which reached Bombay on Friday, sometimes did not get to Yerandawana till the following Wednesday.
Word Of The Day