or richer classes, and resembles the typical house of the southern country in having an opening (manduva) in the middle of the courtyard to let in light. The kitchen is usually located if possible in the western part of the house, but even if it is not, it is still called the 'west room' (padamati illu). The front steps of the houses are usually decorated with lines of powdered chunam, the lower parts of the doorposts with the usual saffron and kunkumam in honour of Lakshmi, and the sides of the pials and walls with white spots made with chunam and water.
The dress of the Hindus presents no very special peculiarities. Little boys of the higher castes usually wear short breeches or drawers as their only garments, and those of the poorer classes nothing but the langúti or piece-cloth. Little girls of the two classes wear respectively a petticoat and bodice, and a bit of cloth wound round their waists. Orthodox married Bráhman men tie their waist-cloths in the usual complicated manner called panchakachcham. Others of the upper classes tie them, as elsewhere, once or twice round the waist and then pass the upper front fold between their legs and tuck it in at the back. The favourite colour for the cloth is red. Málas and Mádigas ordinarily wear only a langúti. The women usually dress in white cloths. Dancing-girls wear petticoats and bodices, and bodices are common among other castes also. The women's cloths are nearly always of cotton; silk is a rarity. Bráhman women, as elsewhere, pass between their legs the outer front fold of the part which goes round their waists, and tuck it into their waists behind. Women working in the fields tuck their garments between their legs and then pull them up as high as they can. The women of most subdivisions of the Bráhmans, and also those of the Kómatis, Kamsalas and Perikes, wear the cloth over the left shoulder instead of the right.
The men do not usually shave the whole of their heads except one top-knot, as in the south, but often cut their hair like Europeans. Telugu Bráhmans differ from their Tamil caste-fellows in frequently wearing moustaches.
Tattooing is very common as an adornment among the women, and two or three straight lines are sometimes tattooed across painful swellings, to act as a blister. The ponna chettu (the favourite tree of Krishna) is a popular ornamental pattern, and Ráma's feet and the chank and chakram of Vishnu are also common.
The ordinary food-grain of the district is rice. Even outside the delta, in such upland parts as Tuni and Pithápuram,
