INDIA.
How would you like to go to school at six o'clock in the morning? That is the time many children go to school in India. India is a large country in Asia. The children stay in school till nine o'clock. Then they go home for breakfast, and go back to school at ten. At two o'clock they go home for dinner. They go back again at three to stay till evening. You will think that this is a long time to be at school.
[Illustration: Hindoo Children at School.]
In some of the schools they have no desks or chairs, but the boys and girls sit on the floor. In other schools they have long tables instead of desks.
They do not learn their letters as we do. The teachers write five letters in sand on the floor. Then the boys and girls write the letters in the sand. They write the letters many times, until they know them well. Then the teachers write five more letters, and so on until the children know all the letters. When they can make the letters in the sand, they next learn to write them on palm leaves with pens made of wood. The last thing they do is to write them on slates and on paper.
[Illustration: Native Children of India.]
In some of the large towns they learn to read and write English. But English is not the language that most of the people speak. They have a language of their own.
[Illustration: A Hindoo Family at Home.]
The people of India are called Hindoos. They have dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair.
It is so warm that most of the people wear very little clothing. Many of the boys and girls wear no shoes. The girls are very fond of jewels. No matter how poor a family is, they try to buy some jewels for their girls. So the girls in India always have jewelry to wear.
They have no Christmas in India. They have what they call the "Feast of the Cakes." At the Feast of the Cakes they have three holidays. Then they have cakes of all kinds.
The boys are very fond of swinging. They are also very fond of swimming. In some places they have diving wells. The boys plunge from a high bank down into the water below.
[Illustration: A Tiger.]
The rich people have very fine houses, with gardens and flowers and fountains. There are carpets, cushions, and tables in the houses, but no chairs. They sit on cushions on the floor.
The beds are very low, and the legs are often of silver or gold or ivory. They have no sheets or pillow cases, but covers of velvet or satin.
The people who are poor live in houses made of dried mud, with roofs of bamboo poles and straw. They have hardly any furniture. They sleep on mats made of palm leaves.
[Illustration: Cobras.]
In many of the houses they have no tables. They eat off of leaves on the floor. Their food is mostly rice. All the family do not eat together. The father of the family always eats first. When he has eaten, the mother and children sit down to eat.
The women do most of the work. So the girls have to learn to work. But the men and boys do all the sewing. How queer this seems!
[Illustration: An Elephant Piling Lumber.]
There are a great many wild beasts in India--tigers, leopards, cobras, and crocodiles. The tigers are very fierce. They sometimes come into villages at night and carry off men, women or children, and kill and eat them. There are logs. They do work of many kinds. An elephant is much stronger than a horse. He can carry a far heavier load. Sometimes all the family ride on one elephant's back.
