sipping water from the hand, each person repeats another form, saying 'I am full,' and then rises. If no stranger is present, the women wait on the men, but a Hindoo woman never sits down to eat with her husband;* she and the younger children eat what he leaves. She never, indeed, mentions the name of her husband; but when she calls him, makes use of an interjection merely, as Hé! O! &c. When she speaks of him to others, she calls him master, or the man of the house. She never mixes in company, even at her own house, but remains in a separate room, while her husband sits smoking and talking with the guests.† A woman does not change her name at the time of marriage. A Hindoo eats with the right hand, never with the left, which is used in the meanest offices; he never uses a knife, fork, or spoon: he drinks out of a brass or cup, takes up liquids in the balls of his hands; he drinks nothing but water with his food; but before or after dinner, some drink milk or butter-milk. The natives mention fifty or more different dishes, as being sometimes prepared at one meal. The females in rich families, at weddings, shraddhus, the time of investiture with the poita, and the giving a child its name and first rice, have much to do in cooking. The Hindoo shastrus direct, that bramhuns shall eat at two o'clock in the day, and again at one in the night; but a variety of circumstances have produced irregular habits; these, however, are still considered as the appointed hours for eating: after dinner, they wash the mouth, chew betel, and smoke out of the hooka. The hooka has three principal parts, 1. a wooden, brass, or glass bottle, containing The wives of respectable Hindoos are never seen in the streets with their husbands, except on a journey. When Hindoo women see an English female walk arm in arm with her husband, they exclaim, with the utmost astonishment, "Oh! Ma! what is this? Do you see? They take their wives by the hand, and lead them through the streets, showing them to other English, without the least shame." + This uncommon shyness of the Hindoo women is, however, in some measure confined to the higher casts. Some women are very rarely seen, except early in the morning at their ablutions; the wives of the middling ranks, when they go out, draw their garment over the face; but the lowest orders of women pass through he streets with less reserve, and expose their faces to the view of strangers. water;-2. a hollow pipe, inserted in the head of this bottle, and reaching down into the water, on which a cup is placed containing the tobacco and fire;-3. in the vacuum, at the head of the bottle, is also placed what is termed a snake, or crooked pipe, one end of which also descends into the water, and to the other end the mouth is applied, and through it the smoke is drawn, after being cooled in the water. The poor natives use a cocoa-nut as a bottle to hold the water, in the top of which is inserted a hollow reed, reaching into the water, in the other end of which, in a hollow cup, tobacco and fire are placed, and to a hole in the side they apply the mouth, and draw out the smoke. Tobacco grows plentifully in Bengal, and smoking is almost a universal custom; practised indeed to great excess by many. For smoaking, the leaf is pounded, and mixed with molasses; very few chew it. The same hooka goes round amongst all the company of the same cast; and those who are not of the same cast, may take the cup which contains the tobacco and fire from the top of the hooka, and draw the smoke through its tube; but different casts are not permitted to smoke through the same water. Most of the palanqueen bearers smoke charoots. Many Hindoos, after bathing in a morning, take a pill of opium. * The necessaries for a family are bought in the market and paid for daily, except milk, sugar, oil, &c.; these are brought to the house by the seller, who receives his payments monthly. Cheap as all the articles of prime necessity are, there are few Hindoos who are not in debt. In the business of eating, it is almost impossible to describe to what ridiculous lengths the distinctions of cast are carried: a Hindoo ought to have a good memory to know with whom he may, and with whom he may not eat. Europeans are considered as unclean by the Hindoos, principally because they eat any thing, and with any body. Things of ill esteem among others are also considered as unclean, * The quantity of tobacco consumed in Bengal in a year must be great indeed. A moderate smoaker consumes not less than two lbs. a month. The common tobacco is sold at about two-pence the lb. Hindoo women of superior cast neither smoke nor take snuff; but many of the Hindoo pundits take snuff; and often use for a snuffbox a large snail shell. The Bengalee boys begin to smoke at school, from the time they are four or five years old. + Many respectable females, however, mix a little tobacco with the panŭ they chew. but they may be purified by incantations. The presence of shoodrus, dogs, cats, crows, &c. produces the same consequences; yet they may be cleansed by sprinkling upon them water in which gold or kooshй-grass has been dipped. If these animals have touched the food, it cannot be cleansed, but must be thrown away. If an unclean person, or animal, enters the cooking house of a person of superior cast, the latter throws all his earthen cooking vessels away, and cleanses his brass ones. If a European of the highest rank touch the food of the meanest Hindoo, he will throw it away, though he should not have another morsel to eat; and yet this food, perhaps, is merely a little coarse rice, and a few greens fried in oil. The Hindoos are full of ceremony in making a feast; at which the bramhuns are always the chief guests. When a man wishes to make a feast, he is several days in preparing for it, and, soliciting the advice of his relations about the dinner, the presents, &c. he generally comforms to the judgment of this family council; and then purchases the things necessary, cleans up his house, &c. If a bramhun, he never sends an invitation by a shōodrů, but goes himself, or sends a relation, or the family priest. All near and distant relations in the place or immediate neighbourhood are invited. If any one absents himself, without assigning a reason, it is considered as a great affront: if he makes an apology, it is judged of by a council of friends. The female relations and even the males assist in cooking the dinner, of which, on many occasions, two or three hundred persons partake. No boy can partake of a feast given by a bramhun till he has been invested with the poita. The food being ready, the master of the house invites the guests to sit down, when the dinner is brought, and laid out in messes on plantain leaves for plates, under an awning in the court yard; and one earthen drinking cup serves eight or ten persons. While they are feasting, the master goes round, and makes an apology to the guests for not being able to treat them better. After dinner, they are presented with betel; and are sometimes dismissed with presents either of money, cloth, or brass utensils. If the master of the house should arise, and go aside, before every one has finished eating, it is considered as an affront, and all immediately rise and go away. In the month Kartiků, Hindoo sisters imitate the example of the sister of Yumă, the king of death, who in this month gave a feast to her brother, and by marking his forehead with sandal-powder, made him immortal: in the morning of the feast, the sisters pour milk into the hand of each brother, and repeat an incantation, while the brother drinks it. Each sister also puts on the head of each brother a grain of rice, and rubs on the foreheads of each some powder of sandal-wood.* As soon as this is performed, the brother bows to an elder sister, but if the brother is the elder, the sister bows to him, and takes up the dust of his feet.-If a friend uninvited should go to see another, and that friend should not entertain him, it is considered as a great scandal. A person inhospitable towards those of his own cast, falls into disgrace; while unkindness towards a man of another cast, though he perish, meets with no censure. The domestic conversation of the Hindoos turns chiefly upon the business of the family; the news of the village; circumstances connected with religious shews, ceremonies, festivals, &c. ; journies to holy places; marriages; stories about the gods, the heroes and heroines of their mythology, &c. Domestic quarrels are very common: a man and his wife often quarrel, and sometimes fight. There are instances of Hindoo women's beating their husbands.† The Hindoos sit on the ground, or on a mat, or on a low wooden stool, in the house; they can sit on their hams for hours together without fatigue. They never walk or ride out for exercise; and very few keep horses. The Bengalee towns are formed into the eastern, western, northern, southern, and central divisions. In one part, the Hindoos reside, in another, the Musulmans, in another, native Portuguese. The Hindoo part is subdivided, and the different parts contain bramhuns, kayust'hus, weavers, oil-makers, washermen, barbers, husbandmen, potters, &c.: these divisions are not very exactly observed, though in large towns the names, and something of this custom, may be perceived. * From this last act, the feast receives its common name: the sister says to her brother, while marking his forehead, 'I mark thy forehead with sandal-wood; and plant a thorn [to prevent egress] in the door of death (Yůmŭ).' + When the Hindoo women are shocked, or ashamed, at any thing, they put out their tongues, as a mode of expressing their feelings. A very old woman, who is at the same time a great scold, is called by the Hindoos the mother of Yumů. All the Hindoo large towns contain at least one market-place; in them are found many shops called Moodee-dokanus, at which various things are sold, as rice, split pease, salt, oil, clarified butter, flour, wood, earthen ware, lamps, fruits, mats, sugar, sweetmeats, treacle, betel, &c. There are also separate shops for wood, salt, cloth, earthen ware, brass utensils, rice, pease, oil, ornaments, tobacco, sweetmeats, shoes, spices, &c. The bankers sell kourees, weigh and change money, buy and sell old ornaments, &c. The moodee and confectioner's shops are most numerous. Shops are generally built with clay, but in very large towns many are of brick. The Hindoos have also market days (hatus), when the sellers and buyers assemble, sometimes, in an open plain, but in general in market places. The noise in a market-place in England is comparatively small; but the noise of Bengalee hatus may be heard at the distance of half a mile, as though ten thousand voices were sounding at once.* There are no Hindoos in Bengal who make paper, though there are in other parts of Hindoost'hanú; no booksellers, nor bookbinders; the Musulmans make paper and bind books. Amongst all the millions of Hindoos there is not to be found perhaps a single bookseller's shop. The Hindoos make ink with common soot, and also with the water in which burnt rice has been soaked, but these kinds of ink are very inferior. A third sort is made with amülükēe,† and Hărēe-tukee, which is steeped in water placed in an iron pan. After these ingredients have been soaked for some time, the water is drained off, and poured upon some catechu, and then placed in the sun, where it is now and then stirred for two or three days: the maker next puts some pounded sohaga into it; and then it is ready for use. When the Hindoos write upon the leaves of the tală tree, they use ink prepared like the second sort, mixing lac with it. They generally write with a reed, never with the Europe pen. A number of persons procure their subsistence as hawkers or criers: these con *The Hindoos connect religions ceremonies with some of their public fairs, and, in consequence, vast crowds assemble, and worship the god and buy something for their families, at the same time. |