“Life in an Indian Village” is an amusing and clear portrayal of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of a village in the Madras Presidency.  The author first depicts his little community, and then proceeds to describe the avocations of all the leading personages.  As Kelambakam may be taken as a type of thousands of such villages, the book will be found particularly interesting to those who are likely to be brought into contact with the natives of India.  Sir M.E.  Grant Duff has written an Introduction, in which he suggests how the simple villagers can be benefited by their European neighbours.—­Morning Post (London).

The book itself is excellent, and gives a sketch of Indian village society from inside.  It is possible, however, that the ordinary English reader will prefer to take his view of “the black men” from Mr. Kipling rather than from a representative of the natives themselves.  If he wishes to have a native view of native life he will find it in this work.—­Athenaeum (London).

India is always fertile in surprises for English readers.  We know something of those among its peoples which have given us trouble; but here is a “dim population” of which many Englishmen will scarcely have heard the name—­the Dravidians of the Madras Presidency, and we learn with something like astonishment that they number more than the inhabitants of England.  The village which Mr. Ramakrishna describes for us is one of more than fifty thousand, averaging about five hundred inhabitants apiece.  The first thing that strikes us in his account is its highly organised condition.  It is a self-sufficing little commonwealth, in which a quite surprising variety of professions or occupations are represented.—­Pall Mall Gazette (London).

We welcome this little book as a much truer picture of Indian life than many more ambitious works.—­St. James’s Gazette (London).

The work is written in admirable English—­even the blank verse is perfect.  The story of Harichendra alone is worth the cost of the volume.—­Literary World (London).

We have read with great pleasure the book, “Life in an Indian Village,” as it deals with an interesting and not at all unimportant subject in a plain and unpretending way.  Simplicity has a powerful charm of its own; and we recommend the book to all whose heart can still be touched by inartificial descriptions of idyllic, gently flowing, country life.  He who does not assume the tone of “India, what can it teach us?” but cares to profit by teaching, will learn a great deal even from these simple village tales.—­Asiatic Quarterly Review (London).

What more England can do for India is admirably and tersely set forth in the Introduction, which, with Mr. Ramakrishna’s pleasant description of Indian village life, deserves to be widely read.—­Mr. J.B.  Knight, C.I.E., in the Indian Magazine (London).