“Look at the cock, and you will see the difference,” replied her father. “See what a lofty, steady flight he takes half way up that tree, whose lowest branch would allow your grandmama’s sycamore to stand under it. Look at the gay, glossy plumage of each fowl, and tell me if you ever saw such on an English cock and hen. These are the jungle-fowl you have heard me speak of as a great blessing to the natives. I hardly know what some of them would do for food without jungle-fowl.” “That woman looks as if she had not been eating any,” observed Alice. “She looks as if she had had nothing good to eat this long while.” So thought Mr. Carr; and he stopped to ask her if the trees under which she dwelt were fruitful? Marana (for it was she) replied, that her husband and she could generally get cocoa-nuts when they were hungry, but that they had sickened many times under this diet, during the short time that they had been in the jungle. Her husband’s strength had wasted, and she had had the ague; and it was but seldom that she could snare a fowl. Did not her husband bring home game, or earn money, or grow rice? He brought home little game, for want of means to take it. He could not grow rice, as he had neither land nor seed; and as for earning money, how was it possible for a stranger to do so, when so many residents were already unemployed? “It is true,” replied Mr. Carr, “that the gardens are very full of people, some of whom make more show of working than do any good; but still——” Marana was too courteous to interrupt his speech; but when he had paused for some time to think, she declared that her husband must not be supposed to desire to have anything to do with the Challias, or cinnamon-peelers. Rayo was of the fishermen’s caste. “Well, you must settle it between you which is the highest caste. If you differ among yourselves on such a point, a foreigner cannot be expected to decide it. But why does your husband, being a fisherman, come to live here? Why does not he try his chance among the pearl fishers?” “There are too many there, as well as in the gardens,” replied Marana. “Too many for what?” inquired Alice. “There cannot be more men than pearls. Why cannot they take it in turns to fish? And then, if only one pearl was paid to every man, there would be plenty left for the rich men who do not fish.” “Ay; but then captains and merchants from many nations would come: and that is just what our government does not like. A French merchant would carry away pearls, and leave silk dresses behind him, or money, with which the Cingalese might lay out rice-fields and cotton plantations, or stock meadows with cattle. The Dutch captain would go to some neighbouring countries for grain, and would be paid in pearls. The Russian would bring leather and corn, and carry away pearls. The Englishman would bring iron, and clothing of cotton, and a hundred comforts besides, and would make a profitable bargain of pearls.”