In front of this are small tables and rough wooden benches for the accommodation of those who wish to have refreshment. No sooner do our men drop their chairs on the road, than they stagger to one of these tables, and, at a kind of masonic sign that is easily read, a bowl of smoking-hot rice is put into the hands of each, a pair of chop-sticks are grasped from a hollow bamboo receptacle on the table, and without a word it is quickly being shovelled down their throats. It is not until at least half the basin has been emptied that signs of contentment escape from them, and the innate humour, which has been crushed by the pain and weariness on the road, finds expression in laughter and in humorous conversation that fills the air with merry sounds that linger among the branches and wander down along the road into the great glare beyond where the shadows of the banyan lie. In order to ease ourselves from the cramped position we have had to maintain in the chair, we get out and stretch our legs, and finally sit down on one of the benches and watch the moving life that passes and repasses in front of us. Here is a young fellow that has just staggered out of the sunlight into the shadow, and he lets down his burden from his shoulder as though he were tearing off the skin and places it carefully within a few feet of us. He must be about twenty-five, and is as good a specimen of a man as one would find in a day's journey. His face is flushed and excited, and he has a strained look upon it as though he had been bearing a pressure that had become simply unendurable. "How far have you travelled with your load?" we asked him. "One hundred and fifty miles," he replied, "and I have thirty more before I reach the end of my journey." "What is its weight?" I inquire of him. "It is a hundred and fifty pounds at the very least," he said, and he cast a wistful, anxious look upon the huge burden that he had carried so far. "But why engage to bear so heavy a load? A hundred pounds ought to have been your limit, for so long a journey," I continued. "I could not afford to carry less," he quickly replied; "I am paid so much a pound, and I have to pay my own expenses. I have to eat often," he explained, "or I should break down. I have to pay for my bed at night, and I must have a certain amount over to take home to my wife and family. If I were to reduce the weight I could not do that, and so I am compelled to put every pound into my load that I can possibly carry in order that my family may not suffer."