Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/173

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IN INDIA.
153

these, there are numerous sorts of hand punkahs, all very useful. To live without the punkah in the warm weather would be indeed a severe penance, for it is one of the greatest necessaries in India. It is good economy to have it pulled both day and night, relieving the pullers every two hours like sentries on their post; indeed few people sleep without a punkah.

Punkahs have become universal in all European barracks and hospitals, government defraying most of the expense,though the men contribute a certain proportion.

It must be remembered that the punkah does not lower the temperature of the room; the thermometer, either under it or in a corner of the room indicating the same heat.

Punkahs are had recourse to in the North West about the 15th April, and stopped about the 15th October. In Calcutta they are continued nearly the whole year.

8. TATTIES.—A tattyis a frame work of bamboo open like a riddle, covered thinly with the roots of a sort of grass called kus-kus, the ends of the grass being upwards. It is fitted neatly into a door on the weather side of the house, and kept constantly wet by water thrown upon it from the outside; another door is opened on the lea side, and the tatty being pervious to the slightest breeze, a current of cold air is produced, which,