presents money to the ghŭtuku, the officiating bramhun, the bramhans, and relations, according to his ability. The bridegroom remains all night at the house of his father-in-law, but while there he is forbidden to eat any food except that which he has brought with him.

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Early the next morning, the women of the house and neighbourhood carry small presents of money to the bridegroom. About the same hour, five women take up the mat upon which the married couple have slept, for which service they receive a trifling present; after this, the bride and bridegroom, having anointed their bodies. with turmerick, bathe in the small pool mentioned before; and after the guests have taken some refreshment, the bridegroom takes home his bride. The girl's palanqueen is closely covered, so that she cannot be seen: Bengalee women never ride in an open palanqueen. The procession consists merely of the remnant of the first shew; the only novelty is a quantity of artificial flowers fastened on sticks, and carried before the bridegroom. On their arrival, in the place where the offerings were presented to the manes on the day of marriage, the boy's mother takes the pots, and the ball of rice called Shree, and with them touches the foreheads of the married pair; after which she takes some betel in her hand, and, beginning at the ancle, slowly raises her hand till it arrive opposite her son's head, making an awkward noise by the shaking of her tongue, in which she is joined by all the women present. She repeats this to the bride; and also places a fish in the folds of the bride's garments, and some sweetmeats in the mouths of the bridal pair; she then pours some milk mixed with red lead on the feet, and places a measure of corn on the head, of the bride, under which the bridegroom puts his left hand; and in this manner they proceed into the house, the bridegroom with his right hand scattering the corn as they go. The burnt-sacrifice is next offered by the bridegroom, amidst the repetition of many formulas by the officiating bramhun :* among the rest, the bridegroom pours clarified butter on the fire, and rubs a little on the forehead of the bride, saying "by this burnt offering I promise, that whatever fault you may commit with any of your members [he mentions each] I forgive them." They next take

* Pliny says, that the most solemn part of the marriage ceremony was, when the matrimonial rites were performed with solemn sacrifices and offerings of burnt cakes.

up parched rice, and the leaves of the shumee tree, and hold them in their hands, those of the bridegroom supporting the hands of the bride, when the latter says, 'I am come from the family of my father into your family, and now my life and all I have are yours:' after which, the bridegroom repeats the praise of the regent of fire, calling him to be witness, and, after walking round the altar seven times, pours the rice on the fire. Taking up clarified butter, the bridegroom, after saying to the bride, 'Your heart is in mine, and my heart is in yours, and both are one; your word is in mine, and my word is in yours, and both are one,' pours the clarified butter on the fire. He next draws the veil over her face, while he adorns her forehead with red lead. At the close, he intreats the blessing of the company on the bride, adding a prayer to the regent of fire, that he would destroy all mistakes that may have attended this service. Different diversions now take place, and the remainder of the day is spent in feasting, and in dismissing distant relations with presents. Ifa friend on this day should not eat of the food which is considered as having been cooked by the bride, it is regarded as a great dishonour, which can only be removed by his eating there at the next public feast. On this night the married pair do not remain together. The girl's father sends garments, sweetmeats, fruits, &c. for them both, and the next day he goes himself, and sees the married pair put to sleep on an or. namented bed of flowers.

On the fourth or fifth day, the father of the girl takes the bride and bridegroom to his house, where they remain about ten days. On the fifth, seventh or ninth day, the women take off the thread that was tied on the arms of the young couple on the day of marriage; after which, the officiating bramhun, in their names, worships the sun the father-in-law presents changes of raiment to the bride and bridegroom, and at the close entertains the guests. After ten days, the boy returns to the house of his father, and the girl remains with her mother.

At respectable weddings, four or five thousand roopees are expended, but the greatest expence is incurred in the fire-works, and other accompaniments of the procession should four or five hundred persons sit down to the entertainment, their food will not cost so much as eight-pence a head. Many guests who do not partake

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of the entertainment receive presents of money, garments, brass and other houshold utensils.

About forty-five years ago, Jayu-Narayŭnů, a bramhŭn of Khidŭr-pooră, near Calcutta, expended 40,000 roopees in the wedding of his nephew, and entertained five or six thousand guests.-Soon after this, Hŭree-Krishnŭ-rayй, a peer-alee bramhün, expended more than a lack of roopees in the marriage of his eldest son, entertaining the nŭwab, and most of the rajas of Bengal.—About thirty years since, raja Raj-Krishnŭ, of Calcutta, a kayŭst’hŭ, expended 80 or 90,000 roopees in his son's marriage.

At the end of a year, the bridegroom takes home his wife; or, if she be very young, she remains at her father's (visits excepted) till the proper time for their ultimate union, when her husband proceeds to the house of his father-in-law, if a poor man, on foot, and if rich, in a palanqueen, with a few friends. When the married pair return to the house of the boy's father, most of those ceremonies are repeated which took place there on the day after marriage. A Hindoo, on his marriage, does not become a house-keeper, as in England, but continues to live with his father; and in this way, if they can agree, many generations live together. At present, however, separations into distinct families are becoming more and more common.

At the time of the second marriage, certain foolish customs are practised by the females: the girl also abstains from eating the common rice, fish, &c. and on the fifth, seventh, or ninth day, the worship of Shusht'hee, Markŭndéyů, Günéshů, and the nine planets, is performed, the officiating bramhăn reading, and the bridegroom repeating the service after him. To this succeeds the worship of the sun, in which the officiating bramhun, joining the open hands of the bride and bridegroom, repeats certain formulas from one of the smritees. After these services, the bridegroom feeds the bride with sugar, clarified butter, honey, and the urine and dung of a calf, mixed together; and folds up plantains, nutmegs, &c. in the garment of the bride, and as they enter the house, the bridegroom causes a ring to slide between the bride's garment and her waist.* The bride and bridegroom then eat furmenty together.

Among the Romans, the man sent a ring as a pledge to the woman.

The Hindoos in general carry their attachment to children, especially to sons, to the greatest excess. They are amazed at the apparent want of affection in Europeans, who leave their parents, and traverse foreign countries, some of them without the hope of ever seeing them again. If a man should not have children, his father or elder brother seeks for him a second wife;* few take this trouble on themselves. The husband directs which wife shall have the chief rule, though, according to the shastru, this honour belongs to the wife he first married. Multitudes of instances

occur, in which a plurality of wives is the source of perpetual disputes and misery: indeed the Hindoos confess, that scarcely any instances are to be found of the continuance of domestic happiness where more than one wife lives in the same house. A person of some respectability deplored to the author, in the most pitiable manner, his miserable condition on account of having been driven by his father into a state of polygamy. He was obliged to have two cook-rooms, separate apartments, and was compelled to dine with his two wives alternately with the utmost regularity; the children of the different wives were continually quarelling; and thus, through the jealousies, and the innumerable vexations and collisions inseparable from polygamy, he was almost driven to desperation.-On further enquiry into this matter, I found, that polygamy was acknowledged to be the greatest of all domestic afflictions among the Hindoos. Kuvee-kŭnkŭnů, in his Chundee, a Bengalee poem, has deplored his own case in having two wives; and it has become a proverb, that one wife would rather accompany her husband to the gloomy regions of Yumu, than see him sit with the other. In short, the whole country is full of the most disgraceful proofs, that polygamy is an unnatural and miserable state. Thus Divine Providence seems evidently to have marked polygamy as a state contrary to moral order; in which order we see, that innocent enjoyments are always connected with tranquillity, and vicious ones ever followed with pain and disorder. See the history of Abraham, Gen. xxi. &c.

He who has lost his wife by death, generally marries another as soon as he is purified, that is, in eleven days, if a bramhún, and in a month, ifa shōodrů.† Some wait

* The Hindoos say, a man ought to wait till his wife is more than twenty before he marries a second.

+ The wife of one of the author's servants once presented a complaint against her husband, that he neither main tain nor lived with her: when the man was asked the reason of this cruel behaviour, he said, without shame, “Oh Sabéb, she was so sick some time ago, that I did not expect her to live; I therefore married another!"

longer, and a few do not marry again. A Hindoo may marry a second time, a third,* and so on, till he is fifty years old; but, according to the shastră, not when he is advanced beyond this age; nevertheless many of the lower orders marry when sixty, and some kooleenus marry when as old as eighty. The ceremonies at a second marriage are similar to those at the first.

Few men continue in a single state to old age: those who do, cohabit with concubines: few females remain unmarried; none who can obtain husbands. Yet the cast presents such various obstacles to union, and there are so many gradations of rank by which marriages are regulated, that cases do exist in which men cannot ob tain wives, nor women husbands.+ Still, so great a disgrace is incurred by remaining unmarried, that on one occasion a number of old maids were married to an aged kooleenů bramhun, as his friends were carrying him to the Ganges to die.

Widows amongst the lowest casts are sometimes married by a form called nika; when the bride and bridegroom, in the presence of friends, place a garland of flowers on the neck of each other, and thus declare themselves man and wife.

The greatest number of marriages take place in the months Ŭgrühayŭnŭ, Maghŭ, and Phalgooni, these being considered as very fortunate months. In Joisht'hă, eldest sons are forbidden to marry. In Voishakhй few marriages are celebrated, and in Poushi and Choitrů scarcely any, except where the parents are of low cast, and extremely poor. In the other months, none marry. From marriages in the first three months, arise riches; in Asharhů, poverty. If an eldest son be married in Joisht'hŭ, he will die; if any marry in Shravůně, none of the children will live; if in Bhadrǎ or Choitrü, the wife will be inconstant; if in Ashwinů, both husband and wife will die;

A third marriage is considered as improper and baneful to the female; hence, before the marriage ceremony takes place, they first betroth the man to a tree, when, it is said, the evil expends itself on the tree, and the tree immediately dies.

In the year 1815, some Hindoos, of high cast, were on the eve of petitioning the English government to interfere and prevent the koolēēnus from engrossing so many wives, as this disgraceful custom prevented many individuals from entering into the marriage state.