Travels in India (Tavernier) 39.4.5

39.4.5

The others go there to cook rice with quicheri, which is a grain like our hemp-seed; others, too, cook beans, because the water in which they are cooked never causes pleurisy to those who are overheated. There are among these women some who have vowed to perform this charity for travellers during seven or eight years; others for more or less time according to their convenience, and they give each traveller bean water and rice water to drink, and two or three handsful of this cooked rice to eat. Other women are to be seen on the highroads and in the fields following horses, oxen, and cows; these have vowed to eat nothing but what they find undigested in these animals’ droppings. As neither barley nor oats are to be had in this country, the cattle are fed on certain large and hard peas, which are first crushed between two grindstones and then allowed to steep for half an hour, for they are very hard and consequently difficult of digestion. The horses are given some of these peas every evening, and in the morning they receive about two pounds of coarse black sugar, which is almost like wax, kneaded with an equal weight of flour and a pound of butter, of which mixture the grooms make pellets or small balls, which are forced down the horses’ throats, otherwise they would not eat them. Afterwards their mouths are washed, especially the teeth, which are covered with the paste, this gives them a dislike to this kind of food.