p. 13 | FUEL IN INDIA by W. A. Mansell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 29, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 26.

FUEL IN INDIA.

By W. A. Mansell

[Rev. W. A. Mansell, Bijoor, India.]

There are certain domestic manners and customs which tell more of the real wealth or poverty of a people than volumes of statistics. One of these relates to the quality and quantity of fuel which the common people use. Judged by this mark India is undoubtedly one of the poorest of countries.

There is considerable wood in India, but it is not used for fuel by the common people. The immense forests, which supply wood for building and commercial purposes, are nearly all in submontane tracts, and while they are of great extent themselves, they form but an inconsiderable part of the country, and the wood is too expensive to be used for anything but building of the better class. The plains are dotted over with groves of fruit trees, every village site being easily distinguished by its adjacent groves. Of the common trees the mango is chief in importance. It is easily raised, it may grow to noble proportions, the fruit is abundant and profitable, and the wood is the common building wood of the people—that is, it furnishes the wood for the beams, door frames, etc., of the building; the houses themselves are usually built of mud or cheap brick. But even these groves on the plains furnish little or no fuel for the poor except after a severe windstorm, when the villagers go about gathering up the branches, even to the smallest twigs, which may have fallen.

The common fuel of the poor consists of cakes of cow's dung dried in the sun. One can see everywhere women and children with baskets gathering up the precious material and taking it home to make the fuel cakes. When collected, the women of the household make it up by hand into cakes of convenient size. These are dried in the sun, being usually stuck on the sides of the house, or any convenient wall exposed to the sunshine. The heat produced by them is more intense than that of wood. In burning they emit a peculiar pungent odor, and the smoke is especially trying to the eyes. When it is remembered that the ordinary Indian house has no chimney, but the smoke is allowed to find its way out as best it can, it can readily be imagined what a misfortune it is to be obliged to use this fuel.

In the hot weather, before the rains, extra supplies are made, and when thoroughly dried, are neatly arranged in large conical heaps and covered with a coating of mud plaster mixed with the same material, to be opened and used during the rains.

On market days long lines of women may be seen carrying huge baskets of these fuel cakes on their heads, running along with a swift, even trot. One basket containing fifty, made of the ordinary size, will weigh about forty pounds. They are usually sold at the rate of two annas or two and a half annas (that is, four or five cents) a hundred. There are not many countries where eighty pounds of fuel can be bought for five cents, but it must be remembered that this price means a day's wage for an ordinary day laborer.—World-Wide Missions.