The complete Indian housekeeper & cook

thought of ill India ; but if the .svycc sees that his employers expect it and notice it, he will soon learn, like an English groom, to take a pi ide in the appearance of his horse. The following rules should be impressed on all the stable helpers : — 1. Give water before and never after food. 2. Do not soak the corn. It may be damped for ten minutes. 3. Report the least injury or symptom of illness. 4. Beat the grass well, and let it dry a day before using it. 5. Always have two men to groom a horse. 6. Never wash a horse’s legs except on rare occasions, and then dry carefully at once. 7. If you must steal, steal from men, and not from dumb animals. The stjce, however, has other duties besides keeping his horses. He must look after the saddlery and harness, also the dog-cart or carriage, unless a coachman is kept. For saddlery there is nothing like good English soft-soap. If washed with this once a week and carefully dried, scarcely anything else will be required. A recipe for dubbin is, however, given at the end ; though we doubt if anything home-made can be cheaper or better than the soaps and mom roghan sold by the N. W. Soap Company at Cawnpore. Bits and stirrup-irons should be cleaned with dry sand or pounded brick and burnished with a regular steel burnisher. If washed in water, they must be dried at once. In hot weather constant care is necessary to prevent insects getting to the saddle stuffing ; and it is a good plan to have bags of camphor and nim leaves tacked along the top of the saddlehorse or stand. Girths, if white, should be sponged and pipe-clayed, then dusted out ; numdahs or saddle-cloths dried in the sun and brushed, instead of being utterly neglected. Carriages, when it is necessary to wash them, require plenty of water, and not half a bucketful, as the sycc seems to think. But in India the roads are seldom so muddy as to make daily washing necessary. A dry duster is generally sufficient for the most part, and splashes can be removed from the wheels gently with a sponge. A sj)oke brush or carriage Housekeeper and Cook 95 nion is rather a dangerous implement in a native s hands, and we prefer to give him nothing but soft dusters, a sponge, wash leather, and carriage brush. It is always necessary to have a large dust cloth which will completely cover the carriage almost to the ground. Without this, the most careful syce will not be able to send his carriage out as neat as it should be. If the hood is movable, the best plan is to have a hook and pulley to the roof of the coach-house, and so keep the hood out of harm’s way when it is not in use. Harness requires care to keep it strong, and it is usual to put a little lamp-black in the composition used for ’b A o-ood recipe for harness paste is given at the end. The mountings should be kept bright with powdered whitings and the patent leather portions carefully polished with drying oil. Whips should be hung up by the lash, otherwise they will warp. The following recipes will be found useful to the syce : — 1. Waterproof Harness Dressing.— Melt 2 oz. mutton suet with 6 oz. beeswax {Khuchcha mom). Add G oz. powdered sugarcandy, 2 oz. soft-soap, 2 oz. lampblack, 1 oz. powdered indigo, and i teacupful of turpentine. Use like boot blacking. 2. Wheel Grease. — Melt and strain into a tin 2 lbs. fat and 1 bottle common mustard oil.