?Sanitation, Diet, Disease, etc. 307
of the lower classes will readily eat meat, and Chamars will
even consume the flesh of animals which have died of disease.
Rajputs, especially in Central India, and wild forest tribes, eat
what flesh may be killed in the chase, though some of pure
Hindu blood refuse that of deer and pigs. Fowls and eggs are
readily eaten in some parts of the country, but are regarded
with abhorrence in others. Milk, curds, "ghee," or clarified
butter are universally consumed.
As above stated, the great majority of inhabitants are ve-
getarians and live upon the crops raised in the country, the
coarser grains being used by the poorer, and the finer by the
richer, classes of the community. The subjoined table and
remarks taken from the Report of the Famine Commission in
1880 will show the distribution and consumption of the various
staples.
	
PROVINCE.
PERCENTAGE OF FOOD-GROWING AREA UNDER

Wheat or Barley.
Millets.
Rice.
Punjab .....
54
41
5
North-Western Provinces
57
34
9
Bengal, Assam, and Burma
Not. known (but  principally rice).
Central Provinces
27
39
34
Berar .
17
82
1
Bombay ....
7
83
10
Madras ....
-
67
33
Mysore .
-
84
16

"In the Punjab, North-West Provinces and Oudh, in Be-
har, in the northern part of the Central Provinces, and in Guj-
rat, the poorer classes live on the millets grown in the rains
and on barley and gram; the richer classes eat principally
wheat and rice. In Bengal proper and Orissa, and the eastern
portion of Central India (and in Burma) rice is the principal
food,the coarse early rice being mainly taken by the poor, the
x 2