Persons who have been deprived of their cast, have, in some instances, offered large sums to regain it, but in vain. On the contrary, other offenders, who have had no enemy to oppose them, and very little that the bramhuns could seize, have regained their cast for a mere trifle.* The only way of being reinstated in their rank is to give a feast to bramhŭns: all things may be obtained by pleasing this previleged order, in whose hands the cast is either a treasury chest, or a rod of iron.

After the establishment of the English power in Bengal, the cast of a bramhún of Calcutta was destroyed by an European, who forced into his mouth flesh, spirits, &c. After remaining three years an outcast, great efforts were made, at an expence of 80,000 roopees, to regain the cast, but in vain, as many bramhuns of the same order refused consent. After this, an expense of two lacks of roopees more was incurred, when he was restored to his friends. About the year 1802, a person in Calcutta expended in feasting and presents to bramhŭns, 50,000 roopees to obtain his cast, which had been lost through eating with a bramhŭn of the peer-alee cast. After this, two peer-alee bramhŭns of Calcutta made an effort to obtain their cast, but were disappointed, after expending a very large sum.

Sometimes a person is restored to his cast on making the requisite atonement; but many affirm that the atonement benefits the party only in a future state, and does not effect his restoration to society in this world. The offering of atonement is a cow, or a piece of gold, or cloth, or a few kourees.

But that which, more

Such are the baneful effects of the cast on social life. than any thing else, in the opinion of a sincere christian, condemns the cast, is the resistance which it opposes to the prevalence of the true religion. If a Hindoo be convinced of the excellency of the christian religion, he must become a martyr

the

* Many different casts have at their head individuals called Pramanikus, who are consulted on all points relating to the cast. When persons wish to make a feast, they consult their pramanikŭ respecting who shall be invited, and what presents shall be given to the guests. The shōōdrus of one cast living in four or five villages have one pramanikă, who adjusts differences between the individuals of the cast over which he presides. If a person says, he will not eat with another, because he has done something contrary to the rules of the cast, the pramaniků sometimes adjusts the business, by reminding this man, that in his family also there are such and such marks of the plague.

same hour that he becomes a christian.

He must think no more of sitting in the

bosom of his family, but must literally forsake "all that he hath" to become the disciple of Christ. Liberty to obey the decisions of the mind, and the convictions

of conscience, has ever been considered as one of the most important birth-rights of a rational being; but the cast opposes all the rights of reason and conscience, and presents almost insurmountable obstacles to the progress of truth.

The loss of cast, however, loses half its terrors where a person can obtain society suited to his wishes: the chains of the cast, too, are severely or lightly felt in proportion to a person's worldly incumbrances: an unmarried person finds it comparatively easy to leave one order of society and enter into another. I have seen some who have lost cast, quite as happy as those possessed of all that this distinction could bestow many of the peer-alees are possessed of large property, and are invited to Hindoo festivals without reserve; with this difference only betwixt them and other Hindoos, that they do not mix with the other casts at the time of eating; but this exists also among different ranks of bramhuns: a bramhun of high cast will not eat in the same house, and at the same time, with a bramhun of low cast.

In some parts of India, the natives do things with impunity which in other parts would cause the loss of cast. In the upper provinces, the regulations of the cast relative to eating are less regarded than in Bengal; while the intermixture of the casts in marriage is there guarded against with greater anxiety.

Thousands of Hindoos daily violate the rules of the cast in secret, and disavow it before their friends: this fact refers to several new sects, who have seceded, in some measure, from the bramhinical system. But there are great multitudes of young men, especially in Calcutta, who habitually eat, in the night, with Portuguese and others, and shake off the fetters of the cast whenever pleasure calls. Here licentious habits are making the greatest inroads on this institution: and indeed to such an extent are the manners of the Hindoos become corrupt, that nearly one half of the bramhans in Bengal, the author is informed, are in the constant practice of eating

flesh and drinking spirits in private. Ubhůyů-chůrănů, a respectable bramhún, assured the author, of his having been credibly informed, that in the eastern parts of Bengal the bramhuns distil in their own houses the spirits which they drink: this bramhan, a few years ago, at the Shyama festival, called, in the night, at the house of a rich Hindoo near Calcutta, to see the image of the goddess, and observed, that the offerings formed a pile as high as the image itself. Two or three of the heads of the family were in a state of complete intoxication; and after remaining a short time, one of them called out, " Uncle, a thief is come to steal the offerings--see, he stands there, in a white garment." The uncle, also intoxicated, but still able to walk, staggered up to the pile of offerings, and supposing that to be the thief in a white garment, smote it with such force, as to scatter the offerings at the feet of the goddess, and all over the temple floor. While the uncle was thus driving the thief out of the temple, a friendly dog was offering his services to the nephew laid prostrate in the temple yard.-In conversation with a respectable shoodrů, on these secret violations of the rules of the cast, he gave me in writing an account, of which the following is a translation: "When a party sit to drink spirits, they ask a wise man among themselves, whose family for seven generations has been in the habit of drinking spirits, what benefit may be derived from the practice? He replies, 'He who drinks spirits, will be filled with joy, till he fall again and again to the earth: should he vomit, he must place his mouth in it: if he devour the vomit, he will be rewarded with heaven." Let the reader add this fact to various others which he will find in the introduction to the second volume, and he will be able to account for the Scripture designating the practices of the heathen by the expressive term"abominable idolatries."

* Smoking intoxicating drugs also is almost become universal among these representatives of the gods on earth.

CHAPTER III.

SECTION I.

Of births, and the nursing and education of children.

HINDOOS of respectability treat a pregnant female with peculiar tenderness; and when approaching the time of her delivery, she is indulged with whatever she desires. This solicitude does not arise from the fear that the infant will suffer if the mother be denied what she longs for, but, from the hope of having a son, as well as from a common fear among the Hindoos, that if the female do not obtain what she desires, the delivery will be prolonged. A Hindoo woman exceedingly dreads the hour of child-birth,* especially at the first birth after marriage. In the houses of the rich, a slight shed is always prepared for the female; who, after delivery, is considered as in a state of uncleanness; where a number of families live together, such a shed is always reserved for this purpose. Before the birth of a child, to keep off evil spirits, the Hindoos lay the scull of a dead cow, smeared with red lead, &c. at the door of this hut. If a female have a difficult delivery, she suffers extremely for want of that assistance which a skilful surgeon, (did Hindoo manners admit of his services,) would be able to afford: many perish. The midwives are chiefly of the haree cast; other females of low cast practise, but they are not numerous. A roopee and a garment are the common fee to the midwife from the middling ranks; the poor give less.

Almost all the lower orders of Hindoos give spirituous liquors to their females

66

* So great is this dread, that it has received a proverbial appellation, "sută-shurka, or the hundred-fold to be dreaded," and the relations of such a female, considering how doubtful her passing through that period with safety is, to shew their attachment, present her with various farewel gifts.

+ It is become a proverb among this indolent people, that the life of a woman, being more sedentary, is hap. pier than that of a man, and nothing but a dread of the danger here alluded to, makes them content to be men still.

immediately after delivery; and medicine, a few hours after the child is born: sickness rarely succeeds a lying-in. When the father first goes to see the child, if a rich man, he puts some money into its hand; and any of the relatives who may be present do the same. The mother is constantly kept very warm; after five days she bathes; and on the sixth day, to obtain the blessing of Shusht'hee on the child, this goddess is worshipped in the room where the child was born. If a child die soon after its birth, the Hindoos say, "See! the want of compassion in Shusht'hee: she gave a child, and now she has taken it away again."* If a person have several children, and they all live, the neighbours say, "Ah!-Shusht'hee's lap!" On the eighth day, to please the neighbouring children, the members of the family sprinkle, with a winnowing fan, on the ground opposite the house, eight kinds of parched pease and parched rice; and about twenty-one days after delivery,† the woman begins to attend to her family business. On the twenty-first day, Shusht'hee is again worshipped, by the women of the family, under the shade of the fig tree. If the child be a son, the mother continues unclean twenty-one days; if a daughter, a month.

The respectable Hindoos, at the birth of a child, keep a record, drawn up by a gănŭků, or astrologer, who is informed by the father, or some relative, of the exact time of the birth, and is requested to cast the nativity of the child, and open the roll of its fate. The gănňků goes home, and draws up a paper, describing what will happen to the child annually, or during as many astronomical periods as he supposes he shall be paid for: indeed some of these rolls describe what will happen to the person during every period of his existence. This astrologer is paid according to the good fortune of the infant, from one roopee to one and two hundred. The parent carefully deposits this paper in his house, and looks at it occasionally, when any thing good or evil happens to his child. The nativity of sons is more frequently cast than that of daughters. Some persons merely keep the date of the birth; or they

* Hindoos of the lowest class, if several of their children have died soon after the birth, procure a ring to be made from the chains of some convict, and place it upon the next child's ancle. If a son, when grown up, act very contrary to the manners of his parents, he is said to have been changed in the womb by Jatu-harinēë, a goddess, worshipped by this people, and supposed, as her name imports, to play such tricks with mankind.

+ Poor women in the northern parts of Bengal are known to attend to the business of their families the day after delivery. The author is informed, that sometimes a mother is delivered while at work in the field, when she carries the child home in her arms, and returns to her work there the next day.