It looks queer to see a printer squatting before a case of type, and even queerer to see a person writing a letter with a block of paper spread out before him on the ground. But that is the Hindu custom. You find it everywhere throughout India, just as you will find everybody, men, women and children, carrying their loads, no matter how light or how heavy, upon their heads. If an errand boy is sent from a shop with a parcel he never touches it with his hands, but invariably carries it on top of his turban. One morning I counted seven young chaps with "shining morning faces" on their way to school, everyone of them with his books and slate upon his head. The masons' helpers, who are mostly women, carry bricks and mortar upon their heads instead of in hods on their shoulders, and it is remarkable what heavy loads their spines will support. At the railway stations the luggage and freight is carried the same way. The necks and backs of the natives are developed at a very early age. If a porter can get assistance to hoist it to the top of his head he will stagger along under any burden all right. I have seen eight men under a grand piano and two men under a big American roller top desk, and in Calcutta, where one of the street railway companies was extending its tracks, I saw the workmen carry the rails upon their heads. XXII THE ARMY IN INDIA The regular army in India is maintained at an average strength of 200,000 men. The actual number of names upon the pay rolls on the 31st of December, 1904, was 203,114. This includes several thousand non-fighting men, a signal corps, a number of officers engaged in semi-civil or semi-military duties, those on staff detail and those on leave of absence. The following is an exact statement: BRITISH Cavalry, three regiments 2,101 Artillery, eighty-seven batteries 14,424 Infantry, forty-five battalions 42,151 Engineers, one battalion 204 ------- 58,880 NATIVES Cavalry, forty regiments 24,608 Artillery, fourteen batteries 6,235 Infantry, 126 battalions 108,849 Engineers, twenty-three battalions 3,925 ------- 143,617 Officers on staff duty 617 ------- Grand total 203,114