Next to protecting the body from without, or perhaps of equal importance, is fortifying it from within. Here the first point of importance is to get a good cook who is a good baker, and supply him with American flour. Toddy from the sago-palm is an excellent substitute for yeast, and I imagine it must be better, for I never get better, and very seldom as good, bread anywhere in the world as I do in my Indian home in the jungle. The flour usually to be bought in India, made from wheat grown in the country, is either bad or adulterated, and often has sand in it, and the bread made from it is of poor quality. As regards food, there is no difficulty in Mysore, and at a moderate cost as good a table can be kept as could be desired for purposes of health and comfort. Attention should, of course, be paid to having a good vegetable garden, in which a good supply of lettuces and tomatoes should form a principal feature, and during the wet weather months, when vegetables cannot be procured on the spot, tinned vegetables should be used. I have found the French tinned vegetables to be the best. There are now many excellent preparations of herrings preserved in tins, and these should be used occasionally. Ghee is commonly used in India for cooking, but for all dishes for which it is suitable, oil is much cheaper and better. Gingelly oil (Sesamum Orientale) is the best, or, I think, the only oil which is good for this purpose. It is, I find, by the article on oils in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," the finest culinary oil in the world, and superior to olive oil, for which, indeed, it is commonly sold, and large quantities of the seed go to Southern Europe. The seed should be procured and washed in cold water to remove the red epidermis, and then a native oil-maker may be got in to prepare the oil. When ghee, or clarified butter, is required, never buy that article in the bazaar, but buy the best native butter and have it made into ghee. Boil the butter, and add to it a small quantity of sugar and salt, and skim off floatage. If to the clarified butter some fresh milk is added, it may be used for the table instead of butter, but it is better, I find now, to use tinned butter.
Cleanliness in the kitchen, and vessels in good order, are points easily talked about, but cannot be attained without some inspection, and the kitchen and its utensils should be examined from time to time. People who are particular have all the pots and pans ranged out ready for inspection daily, and such inspections are most necessary for health, as the dirty habits of the native servants are such that persistent vigilance is requisite. And I may here add that there is no use in telling the servants a thing once—they must be told again, again, and again. At last they give in to your persistence, and being, like most people in the world, a good deal creatures of habit, go on fairly well. It is only fair to the native servants to mention that, if they do keep things in a dirty state, it is often because they have not the means that servants have at home. The water supply at their command is commonly very deficient, and often not over clean, and they are generally ill supplied with places to wash up in, and with dusters and glass cloths, and then they are rated, and often abused, because plates are badly washed and things in general dirty.
Under the heading of health requisites, I, of course, include literature. This, for a planter of moderate means, is generally a matter of great difficulty, and must continue to be so till the railway system is extended to the planting districts. At present novels that cannot be read more than once are quite out of the question on the score of cost, and, under the circumstances, the planter should content himself with buying Scott's and Bulwer's and George Eliot's novels. He should, of course, have a good Atlas, an Encyclopædia—Chambers' is good and moderate in price, and Balfour's "Cyclopædia of India," which contains much valuable and interesting information. He might also buy Lecky's Works, and Sir John Strachey's "India," and Buckle's "History of Civilization," for, whatever the faults of the last may be, the writer's style is admirable, and the book stirs up thought and inquiry in the mind. Addison's "Spectator," as it is commonly called, Amiel's "Journal," and Locke's "Conduct of the Understanding," might also be bought. Ville's "Artificial Manures" should be procured and studied. Then for newspapers, I may certainly recommend "The Spectator," "The Mail," or tri-weekly edition of the "Times," and "The Illustrated London News"—not the thin paper edition of it, which is most unsatisfactory in every way. One of the best, if not the very best of Indian papers is the "Madras Mail," and that should certainly be taken, more especially as there is much planting intelligence in it. A note should be kept of the various books reviewed in "The Spectator," and of any books the reader might fancy to buy, and Smith's lists of second-hand books, and also the lists of Messrs. Mudie and Co., should be procured, and from these booksellers books may often be bought at a very moderate price. Do not buy cheap editions of novels, but buy the original three volume editions, which have good paper and print, and which may be bought second-hand at most moderate prices.
It is of great importance that a planter should have some pursuit which may be both useful and interesting, such as botany, natural history, or geology, and drawing, too, would be most valuable. In the old days sport filled up our leisure hours, but that, in these days, is not always to be had without going far afield, as, from the number of guns in the hands of the natives, the game within their reach has been mostly destroyed. It is of great value, then, to have some pursuit to fill up time when there is not enough of it to spare to go to a distance from home for sport. Attending to, and taking an interest in a garden is a great resource, and indirectly a source of great pleasure, which I am reminded of as I write these lines, and at the same time listen to the warbling of the Bulbuls in the flower garden in front of my bungalow. These charming little birds are very active, and are now (February 28th), collecting materials for building their nests. There are, too, many charming warblers which are attracted by a garden so arranged as to attract birds. The beds in the foreground should consist of a mixture of flowers and standard roses, and those at the back of various flowering shrubs, and low trees which are suitable for the birds to nest in. I have no carriage road in front of the bungalow, and with this arrangement can have the beds quite close to the foot of the steps of the inclosed veranda. I am much struck with the persistent loquacity of these Indian birds, and at no time of day—not even for a minute—is the sound of birds absent, and their notes are to be heard all through the fine weather.
It is very advisable to take up waste paddy fields, i.e., abandoned rice terraces, for cattle grazing, and I may point out that this is also of advantage to the amenities of an estate, by providing snipe shooting close at hand. It will also be found of advantage for feeding ducks and geese. I have a stretch of such land on one of my properties, and find it most useful. The water, I may add, should be carefully conducted to the various terraces, just as if they were to be cultivated with rice, this, as I need hardly say, being necessary for the snipe. Amongst these scraps of hints, which may be useful, I may mention the fact that tealeries were once common in India. I am told that they are easily established, though I have, myself, no experience of them. It is sometimes possible to add to the amenities of an estate by reserving pieces of land for tigers to lie up in, and this is very important, now that every scrap of land is being taken up for planting either coffee or cardamoms, and that cover for game is becoming proportionately scarce. There are two such pieces that I have reserved on my estate for tigers, but care must be taken beforehand to see that such reserves are on the exact route by which tigers cross from one part of the country to another. For instance, the pieces I have reserved are about three miles apart, and I have never known or heard of a tiger being between them excepting on one occasion last year, when a royal tiger inspected a cattle shed of mine about five minutes' walk from the house. At first sight it seems singular that these animals, like hares, should have their runs, and still more that the runs should be so regularly adhered to, though they may be several miles apart.
In concluding this chapter, and my remarks on planting, I have only to observe that, if a planter chooses to take an interest in everything that is going on around him, and learns to make himself at home in the country, he will find the life both interesting and agreeable. In former times there was, no doubt, a sense of remoteness in the situation, but that, as we have seen, has been considerably removed by the railway extensions of recent years; and when the proposed lines, to which I have alluded in my introductory chapter, are carried out, planters, during the unimportant seasons of the year, may reside either at Bangalore or on the Nilgiri hills (the climate of the latter, taking it all the year round, is the finest in the world), and yet be in full touch with their affairs.
Finally, I may observe that in Mysore we have the great advantage of being out of reach of the faddists of the House of Commons, who, for the sake of their votes, have to be humoured, whether the interests of India suffer or not. There is no chance, for instance, of the opium faddists thrusting a Commission on the Mysoreans, and then making them pay for part of the expenses of the inquiry. The progress of India may be checked by the ignorant or unprincipled action of a party in the House of Commons (and certainly will be checked if the opium faddists are allowed to have their way), but Mysore is free from the only danger that threatens India—the sacrifice of its interests in order to serve party ends in the House of Commons.