She is standing in the low verandah of her bamboo house, looking out over a network of gorges, rifts, and ravines, precipices in peaks, with villages crowning each crest. The houses are thatched with long grass, which grows over the hills, while below in the valley the rice is cultivated in terraces. The villages are stockaded with bamboo, and the water runs through them in troughs of split bamboo.
"The people are certainly very dirty," says Eleanor, watching an old woman with large amber earings, pounding rice, and talking to a dusky man in a blue turban.
"Yes. They wear their clothes till they fall off, and never wash except when it rains. That man below is a noted warrior in these parts."
"How do you know?"
"You see the sword slung over his shoulder, with a bamboo hoop? Well, the tiger's hoop is a sign of distinction."
"I wish the old woman would stop pounding. She makes my back ache to look at her. She has been making linen on a loom all day, and must be dreadfully tired."
"Did you notice the bell on it?"
"Yes. What was that for?"
"So that her lord and master may know when she stops working."
"There was a funeral to-day," says Eleanor; "the guns have been going since morning in the jungle, to keep the spirits off. What a misery it must be to believe in 'Nâts.'* That old woman there gave me a charm. I am always to wear it to keep the devils off. Do you think it will, Carol?" with a low laugh. "Or am I theirs already?"