"Why don't you believe in Him yourself?" asked the doctor.
"Don't waste your time on us old fellows. We are past saving. We have been thieves all our lives and you can't change us now. Do all you can to help the children and you will be doing a good work," was the chief's reply.
All the natives gathered in the street in front of the school for the customary foot races which Dr. Jones held on each of his visits. There were four races: one for the boys; one for the girls; one for the women and one for the men. They were all eager to take part for the doctor distributed a few coins as prizes to the winners. The rivalry was intense and, at the conclusion of each race, there was much confusion with many disputes as to who finished first. Dr. Jones insisted on being the judge and all were informed that they must abide by his decision or all the games would be called off.
That evening we enjoyed the hospitality of Dr. Jones. I slept in a comfortable bed, protected by a fine mosquito net and cooled by the breeze of a huge punka—which was operated by a coolie woman who sat on the porch all night and pulled the rope.
In the cities of India foreigners use electric fans and in the rural districts a native-propelled punka. It is so intensely hot in some parts of the country that if the coolie goes to sleep on the job the foreigner immediately awakens.
Twenty thousand people die each year from snake bite in India. I awoke to find a small reptile in my room. The floors of the houses are built close to the ground and the doors and windows are often left open for ventilation. Snakes are so numerous that they frequently find their way into the huts of the natives and occasionally into the houses of the foreigners.
Railroad travel in India is the cheapest I have ever known. From Madura to Trichinopoly is a distance of about one hundred miles. We rode native third-class and our tickets cost us but eight annas (sixteen cents) each.
There are five classes of travel on Indian trains: first-class, second-class, intermediate, European third-class and native third-class. The trains are divided into compartments with a capacity of from twelve to twenty-four passengers. The first-class seats are covered with leather cushions and the seats of the other classes decrease in softness to the hard and cold benches of the native third-class. The first-class accommodations are used exclusively by British officials, missionaries, resident Europeans and tourists. The native third-class is a cattle train. These bare stall-like compartments are crowded with naked coolies—men, women and children—who are jammed in by the train guards like dried prunes. I have seen coolie after coolie slammed into one of these compartments, already full to the roof, until I thought the poor beggars would all die of suffocation.
The first-class fare is usually twelve or fifteen times greater than the native third-class. Our tickets from Madura to Trichinopoly would have cost us about $2.50 each for first-class.
The cheapest possible fare from Calcutta to Bombay, a distance of over fifteen hundred miles and a three-day trip, is about $2.80. This rate is for native third-class accommodations. The first-class fare would be about fifty dollars and the intermediate classes would be proportionately graduated in price.