The complete Indian housekeeper & cook

and vapours he draws from the lieat-stricken world. Sleep in the day, by all means, if necessary ; in this case go to bed deliberately. Do not simply lie down in your day clothes. It isn’t half so refreshing as a real sleep on a real bed. Get out into the garden as soon after five o'clock as it is possible, and don’t look at the thermometer half-a-dozen times a day. The constant friction between your desires and the actual facts tends to make your temper, at any rate, rise considerably. 1 he writer’s idea of a healthy, comfortable, hot-weather day is as follows : Rise at five o’clock, or half-past, after a night spent under a thermantidote, or on the roof with a punkah. Take tea and toast. Then, on some pretence or another — if possible with an object — stay out of doors riding, driving, or walking till half-past seven or eight o'clock. Take some porridge and milk, or some other light refreshment, remembering that in the hot weather it is a mistake either to feel empty or to take a heavy meal. Then bathe, either in a swimming-bath or in a tub full of really hot water. Look after the housekeeping, &c., either before or after your bath. Not later than ten o clock, breakfast, and work steadily at something till noon. From twelve till two lie down and read, or sleep. It is a horrible mistake to sleep after a heavy luncheon ; you wake unfit even for your own society. Lunch at two, or half-past. Work till four, bathe, dress, and go out. So, as Pepys says, dinner at eight, and to bed about half-past ten. For children the same routine may be adopted, except that they should sleep from half-past eleven to half-past three, if possible. That is to say, there should be two nights in every twenty-four hours. Even if they cannot sleep, they should be dressed in their flannel night-gowns and kept as quiet as possible, in a cool, darkened room. So much for entourage. In regard to housekeeping cares, the effort to get good digestible food must be constant. Meat must, without an ice-box, be eaten the day it is killed, and thus it is almost invariably tough. But any stringy stuff may be improved by being minced, beaten, and pulped through a coarse sieve It can then be formed into cutlets and grilled. This is a very different thing from the khdnsamah’s melange of meat, spices^ onions, and sauces, which goes by the same name. Quails are a great stand-by; so are eggs, fowls, and fish. The hot- 204 The Complete Indian weather vegetables have a bad name, but that is largely the fault of the cooks. Properly dressed, they are quite palatable. Good butter can always be made from milk, and the writer was never without cream to her tea during the whole two-and-twenty years she lived in India. This is mentioned to show that the heat need not dislocate the whole articulations of life, unless we choose to have it so. The fact is, that many people make the climate of India into a Frankenstein monster, and straightway become alarmed at their own creation. It is often necessary to engage another bheestie for watering the thermantidotes during the hottest months, and in view of epidemics an extra sweeper is a desideratum. When the rains set in, a covered shelter on the roof will be found a great comfort. As a rule, you will be able to sleep there soundly, if a punkah be rigged up to keep away mosquitoes. Failing a permanent erection, the upper part of a tent does well.