Note 106 — IX.

In many English families in India there prevails a sort of punkah mania, so that there is a regular hurricane incessantly blowing over their heads. Undoubtedly these artificial gales are particularly agreeable in apartments where, a large number of persons being assembled, the atmosphere becomes intolerable—as, for instance, courts of justice, churches, hotels, and hospitals. Under such circumstances, they are, indeed, a most valuable contrivance. But their application is entirely overdone; and there are persons who, even while they are sleeping, have a Hindoo servant continually working the punkah, which, under such circumstances, is usually worked from an adjoining room by means of silken cords, so that the motive power is not visible from the apartment, but only the effect felt. Strangers at first find these artificial currents very apt to superinduce headache, until continued residence makes him regard the punkah as a most necessary article of furniture.