to renew their efforts,
that many more Missionaries may be sent to India every year.
CHAPTER FIVE.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A GENTLEMAN AND A SHEPHERD.
We will now return to our history of the boy Daniel. In the same year
that he broke the stone serpents, he played a trick on some impostors
who were taking part in a religious procession, which the shepherds of
Singonahully and the neighbourhood had got up. The shepherds in the
Mysore country are very ignorant and very superstitious. This may
partly be accounted for from the fact that they live with their flocks in
the open fields daily, from morning to night, associate little with their
fellow-men, and seem shut out from all means of instruction. A very
learned Brahmin, who was at one time the Reverend William Arthur's
Canarese teacher, wrote a number of `Village Dialogues,' and in one of
them the shepherd is most admirably described. The following extract
is made in order to show the shepherd's ignorance, his creed, and his
mode of worship. It is a fit introduction to the Shepherds' procession
which little Daniel interrupted. The extract is part of a supposed
dialogue between an English gentleman passing through the country
and a shepherd, whom he happens to see near the public road:
The shepherd had a handkerchief round his head, a grey woollen
blanket tied like a hood, and a six-cubit piece of cloth round his loins.
Behind him came a flock of sheep, and behind the flock, in front, and
on both sides there were barking dogs. The shepherd had a stick in his
left hand, which he laid upon his left shoulder; in his right hand he had
a long switch, and under the armpit a bag, in a small net of hemp-cord
network; the net hung from the shoulder on the left side. Calling
"Hus-si, hus-si, kiy-yo," to the sheep which were straggling on all four
sides, he brought them together and drove them along; going
sometimes before, and sometimes behind. Whilst he was going behind,
he saw an English gentleman coming along in a travelling carriage, and
said to himself, "Who in the world is this? A gentleman coming, as I'm
alive! Why should I stay in his way? I'd better hide myself a bit." So he
got behind a hedge, and fearing lest the sheep should stray, as he kept
peeping and looking out every now and then, and huffing them with his
cry, "Hus-si, hus-si," this gentleman saw him, and called out, "Ho Sir,
Gowda, come here." Gowda is the head man of a village, and the word
was used on this occasion respectfully. Hearing which, the shepherd
said to himself, "What trouble has come now? He's calling me to come
to him. If I go to him, I cannot tell what he may do to me. And if I don't
go, I cannot tell what will happen. But they say that English gentlemen
never do harm to anybody. Though I hear him, I'll just keep quiet as
though I didn't hear, and if he calls again, I'll go." The gentleman,
seeing the shepherd's great perplexity, and knowing that it was through
fear that he did not come, again called out, "Ho Sir, Gowda, Gowda,
come here; don't be afraid; I won't do anything to you; you need not
give me anything; come here, come and have a talk." On which the
shepherd thinking within himself, "If I don't go to him after this, he
may get angry, and I can't tell what he will do," delayed a little, as
though driving his sheep; when the gentleman again called, "Come."
"There is no getting out of it, I must go," said the shepherd to himself;
and came near, and stood with the stick across his shoulders, holding
the ends of the stick on both sides with his hands, swinging the switch
that he held in his right hand, stooping, moving his head from side to
side, and shuffling his feet. Seeing the shepherd, who thus came and
stood, the gentleman entered into conversation with him, as follows:
G. "Well, Sir, Gowda, who are you?"
S. "I am a shepherd, my lord."
G. "What is your name?"
S. "My name is Bit-tare Shikkanu, Sir." (The words mean, "If you let
him go, you won't catch him again.")
G. "Bravo! If one let go your name, he won't catch it again, eh? Well,
what is your god's name?"
S. "Bir-ap-pa is our god, Sir."
G. "Bir-ap-pa, eh? what is he like?"
S. "That's good, Sir. What should god be like? It is in this temple."
G. "How do you worship your god? and how often?"
S. "We worship our god once a year, or once in two years, or if we miss
that, once in three years. When
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