United States or Kazakhstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Brahman quarters surround the temples, of which of course only the outer courtyards are accessible to other than high-caste Hindus. The low-caste "untouchables," who do the menial work of the town, live strictly segregated in their own quarter, which consists only of mud huts and even flimsier shelters of platted palm-leaves and bamboos.
Populace-hodgepodge: therein is everything mixed with everything, saint and swindler, gentleman and Jew, and every beast out of Noah's ark. Good manners! Everything is false and foul with us. No one knoweth any longer how to reverence: it is THAT precisely that we run away from. They are fulsome obtrusive dogs; they gild palm-leaves.
"It would be charming!" replied Molly, with a sweet though languid smile. "We'd live in a wooden hut, roofed with palm-leaves, and while you and Fred were away hunting for dinner, I would milk the buffaloes, and boil the cocoa-nuts!"
Part of its roof had been repaired with a thatch of palm-leaves, which formed a singular junction with the portion of the ceiling which remained, and which exhibited a blue sky-ground, with gilt stars. An alcove had been turned into the fireplace, necessary for cooking.
See, beneath your feet is the marking of great tree-trunks lying aslant across the floor, and the forms of gigantic palm-leaves strewed among them. Here is something different, rounded like a nut-shell; you can split off one side, and behold there is the nut lying snugly as does any chestnut in its bur! Did you notice the great pillars of coal that are left to uphold the roof?
Some weave mats and baskets out of palm-leaves or reeds; others make pottery; others make iron-headed spears and hoes for their fields, but only a few things that can easily be carried are wanted to last. When the village moves, most of the things must be left behind. So, until a tribe decides to stay always in one place, it does not as a rule learn to make many useful and beautiful things.
When the vessel is large, it also has a foresail of the same form. Both yards, with their tackle, can be lowered upon the gangway when the weather is rough. The helmsmen are stationed in the stern to steer. It carries another bamboo framework on the gangway itself; and upon this, when the sun shines hot, or it rains, they stretch an awning made from some mats, woven from palm-leaves.
She looked westward, across the river to the ugly village with the dried palm-leaves on its roofs, and far away to the white-domed city, the dimpling oases and the mountainous dunes that towered against a flaming sky; then eastward, towards the two vast desert lakes, or chotts, one of blue water, the other of saltpetre, which looked bluer than water, and had pale edges that met the sand like snow on gold.
He did not attempt to accomplish the feat all in one sitting. At first he was content to achieve a cutting edge of a couple of inches, with which he cut a long, pliable bow, a handle for his knife, a stout cudgel, and a goodly supply of arrows. These he cached in a tall tree beside a little stream, and here also he constructed a platform with a roof of palm-leaves above it.
Attached to the temples are frequently schools, in which the priests fulfil the duties of teachers. Near this particular temple, we saw about a dozen boys girls are not allowed to attend school busy writing. The copies for them were written very beautifully, by means of a stylus, on small palm-leaves, and the boys used the same material.
Word Of The Day