sitting with his master, a shoodru, coming in, would give the common sulam, with one hand, to the monarch, and with his joined hands would make the reverential numuskarů to the bramhun. The Bengalee women, if of equal rank, bow to each other, by raising their joined hands to the head. A woman of inferior rank bows to a superior, and rubs the dust of her feet on her forehead, but the superior does not return the bow. In their descriptions, the Hindoos indulge in the most extravagant hyberbole. A splendid palace they call the heaven of Vishnoo;-a heavy rain, the deluge ;-a quarrel, the bloody contest between the Pandůvěs and the sons of Dhriturashtrů, in which eighteen ukshouhinees* were slaughtered ;—a crowd is always swelled to myriads. Respecting a water spout, the Hindoos say, the elephants of the god Indră are drinking;—the rainbow they call Ramu's bow ;-a whirlwind is caused by aerial beings called pishachus ;-thunder is occasioned by Indru's hurling his thunderbolts at the giants, who come to drink water from the clouds, and the lightning arises from the sparks of these thunderbolts. Some add, that the ring round the moon arises from the splendour of the planets or gods, who sit there as the counsellors of Chăndră (the moon.) In directing their letters, as well as in the compliments prefixed to them, the Hindoos use the most extravagant address: the following may serve as specimens: To a king: To the great, the excellent, the prosperous, the illustrious king, Krishnu Chundru-Ray, the nourisher of multitudes from many countries, the fragrance of whose fame has spread through the whole world; at whose feet many kings, adorned with refulgent crowns, bow; whose glory makes his enemies shrink as the sun does. the koirŭvu; whose fame is pure as the queen of night; the priest of the perpetųal sacrificial fire.'-To a teacher: To Ŭbheeshtůdévu, the ferryman across the sea of this world, the teacher of the way of deliverance from sin, the sun-like remover of the great darkness springing from worldly attachment; the nut‡ which removes the impurites of the soul; to thy feet I bow, the nails of which are like the horns of the half moon.'—To a father: "To the excellent person, my father, the only author of * One ŭkshouhinee comprises 109,350 foot, 65.610 horses, 21,870 chariots, and 21,870 elephants. Nymphica esculenta. An allusion to a nut by which the Hindoos purify water. + The my existence, my governor, whose mind drinks the honey on the water-lily feet of the deity; at thy feet, which drive away my darkness, I supplicate.'—To a mother : 6 To my excellent and dignified mother, who bore me in her womb; who, feeding, nourishing, and comforting me, raised me to manhood; by whom I saw the world, and who gave me a body to perform the offices of religion; at thy feet I supplicate, which are the water-lilies on the reservoir of my heart.' When two Hindoos, after a short absence, meet, the inferior first attempts to take hold of the feet of the other, which the latter prevents. They then clasp each other in the arms, and move their heads from one shoulder to the other twice; and afterwards ask of each other's welfare. The inferior replies, Through your favour, I continue well.' As you command; all is well.' 'As you command; all is well.' Or he asks, How? Is the house well?' meaning the family. When a bramhon happens to sit near another bramhun, if a stranger, and if he is speaking to an inferior, he asks, Of what cast are you?' The other replies, I am a bramhŭn.' To which line of bramhuns do you belong?' I am a Rarhee bramhŭn.' t'hakoorů.'* 6 'Of what family?' 'Of the family of Vishnoo When two persons of the lower orders of Hindoos quarrel, if one should strike the other, the person injured appeals to the spectators, and, taking hold of their feet, says, You are witnesses that he struck me.' Some of the spectators, unwilling perhaps to become witnesses, say, 'Ah! don't touch our feet;' or, the injured party takes a corner of the garment of each one present, and ties it in a knot, saying, 'You are witnesses that he struck me.' When a Hindoo is guilty of common swearing, he says, 'If I live, let me endure all the sorrow you would endure if I should die ;' but this oath is wrapped up in three words, Eat your head.' Another says, Touching your body, I say this.' 'Dohaee Gunga!' is another oath; the meaning of which is, From such a falsehood preserve me Gănga.' 6 'If I speak a falsehood, let me be esteemed a rascal.' 'IfI have committed such an action, let me be a leper. If I have done this, let me not see this night.' "If I have gone to such a place, let me become a chandalŭ,' &c. tors. *The different orders of Hindoos trace their descent for ten or twelve generations, from distinguished ances When a Hindoo sneezes, any person who may be present, says, 'Live, and the sneezer adds, With you.' When he gapes, the gaper snaps his thumb and finger, and repeats the name of some god, as Ramă! Rama! If he should neglect this, he commits a sin as great as the murder of a bramhōn. When a person falls, a spectator says, 'Get up.' If he should not say this, he commits a great sin. In some houses, the The houses of the rich are built of brick, on four sides of an area; the north room is one story high, and contains the idol; on the ground floor of the two sides and the front are three porches, and over them rooms for the family. front is merely a high wall, containing a door in the centre. rooms occupied by the family, are mere air holes, through which the women may be seen peeping as through the gratings of a jail. At the times of the great festivals, an awning is thrown over the top of the court, into which the common spectators are admitted, while the bramhuns, or respectable people, sit on the two side verandas, and the women peep from the small crevices of the windows above. Allowing for the variation of men's tastes, the above is the general form of the houses of the rich. Their sitting and sleeping rooms contain neither pictures, looking-glasses, book-cases, tables, chairs, nor indeed any thing, except a wooden bedstead or two, loose mats, a few brass eating and drinking utensils, a hooka, and the dishes used for pană. Some of the rich natives in Calcutta approach nearer the English in their furniture, by keeping large pier glasses, chairs, couches, &c. but these are not a fair specimen of the inside of a house purely Hindoo. The houses of the middling ranks have the form of a court, but they are made with mud walls, bamboo roofs, and thatch. The poor have a single, damp, and wretched hut. Almost all their houshold goods consist of a few vessels for cooking, and others to hold their food; most of these are coarse earthen vessels. Their brass vessels are, a dish to hold the boiled rice, a round bason to hold water, and a small round dish or two. Some use a stone or a wooden dish to hold the rice. The middling ranks keep a box, or chest, to secure their little property against thieves. From the above description, some idea may be formed of a Bengal town, if we keep in mind, that there is scarcely any attention paid to regularity, so as to form streets, or rows of houses in a straight line. It is well for this people, that the climate does not make it necessary, that they should possess strong well-built houses: the house of a poor Hindoo has only one room; the middling ranks have two or three, one of which is for cooking; in another, the husband, wife and young children sleep; and in another, or upon the veranda, other branches of the family sleep. The Hindoos are not very delicate about their bed or sleeping room: they lie on a mat laid upon the floor, or at the door, and have only a thin piece of cloth to cover them. In taking a walk early in a morning, many Hindoos may be seen lying out of doors before their shops like so many corpses laid out for interment. One of the apartments, in the houses of some rich men, is appropriated to a very curious purpose, viz. when any members of the family are angry, they shut themselves up in this room, called krodhagaru, viz. the When room of anger, or of the angry. any individual is gone into this room, the master of the family goes, and persuades him or her to come out. If it is a woman, he asks her what she wants? She asks, perhaps, for a large fish to eat every day— (she has seen one probably in the hands of some other female of the family)—or for a palanqueen to carry her daily to the river to bathe--or for the means of performing the worship of some idol-or for beautiful garments or ornaments. The price of a moderate-sized clay hut is about thirty roopees. The labour for building a mud wall a cubit thick, one hundred cubits long, and seven cubits high, In the months of is, in the country, seven roopees; near Calcutta ten roopees. December and January, the Hindoos who live in mud houses, are busy in repairing and thatching them, as at this time straw is cheap. Those who live in brick houses The doors and winare seldom willing to be at the expence of plastering them. dows are very few and small, the latter are often as small as the gun-holes of a ship. If a person meets with misfortunes in a particular house, he concludes that some bones are buried in it; sometimes under such superstitious fears he leaves his house. If bones are repeatedly found in a house, it is generally abandoned by the owner. When a sum of money, or any thing else, has been stolen from a house, and it is pretty certain that some person of the house is the thief, the Hindoos, in some plac es, rub the thumb nails of all the persons in the house, imagining that the name of the thief will become legible on the nail of the offender! The Hindoos consider it unlucky to leave their homes, and undertake a journey, in the month Poushů. They treat the following occurrences as bad omens; viz. if the lizard makes a noise, or any one sneezes, when a person is about to begin an action; if a person is called when he is about to set off on a journey; if a person on departing to any place hits his head against any thing, or sees an empty kůlŭsă (water-pan.) I have frequently seen a Hindoo, when about to take leave of another, prevented by the chirping of a lizard. It is a common saying, Ah! I suppose some evil will befall me to-day, for the first person I saw this morning was such or such a miserable wretch.' The following are good omens, viz. if a person setting off on a journey sees a dead body, or a kălúsă full of water, or a jackal, on his left hand: or if he sees a cow, a deer, or a bramhŭn, on his right hand. These good and bad omens are to be found in the shastrus; but beside these, there are many which custom has established. Scarcely any Hindoos attach flower-gardens to their houses; a pumpkin plant is very often seen climbing the side of the house, and resting its fruit on the thatch; and, on a plot of ground adjoining the house of a poor man, it is very common to see the egg-plant, and plantains. Orchards are very common; the principal trees in which are the mango, jack, cocoa-nut, betel, custard-apple, plumb trees, &c. A clump or two of bamboos is very common in these orchards. To prevent a tree from continuing unfruitful, which they suppose has been injured by the evil machinations of some enemy, the Hindoos sometimes tie a string round the trunk of this tree, with a kouree, or the bone of a cow, attached to it. To drive destructive animals from a field, or a plot of cucumbers, or egg-plants, &c. the Hindoos fix on a bamboo a pot covered with soot, with some white lines drawn on it. Beside the want of gardens, the Hindoos do not keep fowls, nor any domestic animal, except a cat. The domestic birds of the country are, the water-wagtail, the mina, sparrow, crow, swallow, &c. The jackals make a horrid yell around the houses at night, and I have heard of instances of young children being carried away by them in the night, and devoured. Mad jackals do great mischief. |