sist of fish women, confectioners, ear-cleaners, men who take up things from wells, cow-doctors, quacks, basket-makers, sellers of fruit, whey, matches, oil, tooth-powder, wood, pounded charcoal to light pipes, the betel-nut, the juice of the date tree, and women's ornaments. Others exhibit learned cows, bears, monkies, large goats, gods and other images, little men, &c.-A cast, called vajees, perform different feats of slight of hand, tumbling, &c. They travel in hordes, like the gypsies, staying a few days or weeks only in one place, where they form a kind of encampment; their huts are made with reeds or leaves fastened to bamboos, and brought upon the ground like the sides of a roof.—The doivŭgnů bramhŭns go from house to house, proposing to cast nativities: sometimes they stop a person in the street, and tell him some melancholy news, as, that he will not live long; and the poor superstitious Hindoo, firmly believing that these people can read his fate in the palm of his hand, or in the motions of the stars, and that they can avert disasters by certain ceremonies, gives them his money. By such means as these the doivŭgnů bramhuns obtain a scanty maintenance. The Musulmans alone make and sell fire-works.

In those parts of Bengal where articles of consumption sell the cheapest, their prices are nearly as follow; Rice, the mun,* 12 anas; wheat, 1 roopee; barley, 8 anas; pease, 6 anas; salt, three roopees; mustard oil, 4 roopees; clarified butter, 10 or 12 roopees; sugar, 4 roopees; treacle, 1 roopee 8 anas; pepper, 4 anas the sér; nutmegs, 16 roopees the sér; milk, 1 mun, 10 sérs, the roopee; curds, ditto; butter, 8 anas the sér; bread 20 loaves (10 sérs) the roopee. Live stock, a milch cow, 5 roopees; a calf, one year old, 8 anas; a pair of good bullocks, 8 roopees; a bull, 4 roopees; a milch buffalo, 20 roopees; a ram, 12 anas; a common sheep, 8 anas: a he-goat, 8 anas; a milch goat, 2 roopees; a young goat or lamb, 4 anas; a turtle, 5 anas; eggs, 150 the roopee; pigs, middling size, 8 anas each; a good Bengal horse (tatoo) 10 roopees; a wild deer, 1 roopee; a turkey, from 4 to 6 roopees; a peacock, 2 anas; rabbits, 8 anas a pair; porcupines, 6 anas a piece; a boy, 3 * A man is about 80 lbs. ; 40 sérs make one mun; a roopee, is 2 shillings and 6 pence; an ana, two pence.

Turkies are no

+ The common river turtle is frequently caught by the line: some bramhuns eat it. where met with far from Calcutta unless carried by Europeans. Wild peacocks are very numerous in The flesh of this animal is offered up in the shraddhŭ, and eaten both by bramhans

some parts of Bengal.

and shōōdrūs.

roopees; and a girl, 2 roopees.*-It ought to be observed, however, respecting the above prices, that in the neighbourhood of Calcutta articles are one fourth dearer; in other places, cheaper or dearer, according to various circumstances: in the district of Dinagepore, many articles of prime necessity are very cheap.

It is surprizing, how the country day-labourers are able to support life with their scanty earnings. In some places, their wages do not exceed a penny a day; in others three half-pence, and in others two pence.t To enable us to form some idea how these people are able to maintain their families on so small a sum, it is necessary to consider, that their fire-wood, herbs, fruits, &c. cost them nothing; they wear no shoes nor hats; they lie on a mat laid on the ground; the wife spins thread for her own and her husband's clothes, and the children go naked. A man who procures a roopee monthly, eats, with his wife and two children, two muns of rice in the month, the price of which is one roopee. From hence it appears, that such a day-labourer must have some other resource, otherwise he could not live: if he is a Musulman, he rears a few fowls; or, if a Hindoo, he has a few fruit trees near his house, and he sells the fruit. If by these, or any other means, the labourer can raise half a roopee or a roopee monthly, this procures him salt, a little oil, and one or two other prime necessaries; though vast multitudes of the poor obtain only, from day to day, boiled rice, green pepper puds, and boiled herbs: the step above this, is a little oil with the rice. The garments of a farmer for a year (two suits) cost about two roopees (5s.); while those of a servant employed by a European, cost about sixteen, (40s). A few rich men excepted, the Hindoos burn in their houses only oil; they will not touch a candle. Some of the rich, place a couple of wax candles in the room which contains the idol.

In country places, houses are never rented: the poor man gives about two-pence

* Boys and girls, for domestic servitude, are bought and sold at fairs in some parts of Bengal, particularly at Huree-hŭrů-chůtrů, a place on the banks of the Gŭndŭkēē. They are always the children of parents who know not how to maintain them; and are treated, in general, I believe, by those who have bought them, with humanity. When they grow up, they frequently run away, and are seldom sought after.

+ In the neighbourhood of Calcutta, day-labourers receive as much as three-pence a day; masons, five-pence, and common carpenters, four-pence and six-pence; good carpenters, about a shilling a day.

T

annually for the rent of a few yards of land, and on this, at his own expence, he rears his hut. A rich land-owner frequently gives to bramhuns, and men of good cast, land on which to build their houses rent-free. Poverty, instead of exciting pity in this country, only gives rise to the reflection, He belongs to a degraded class: he is suffering for the sins of a former birth, and is accursed of the gods.'

The coins which circulate in Bengal are, gold-mohŭrs, value 16 roopees; halfmohŭrs, quarter-mohurs, two roopees, and one roopee (gold pieces;) roopees, half roopees, quarter roopees, half quarter roopees, and one ana pieces (silver); copper poisas, four of which make an ana, half poisas, quarter poisas, and shells called kourees, from the Maldive islands; 5760 of the latter sell for a roopee. Labourers among the native masters, are paid daily in kourees; the daily market expences are paid with these shells, and they are given in alms to beggars, as well as used on other occasions. A shopkeeper as stoutly refuses to receive a kouree with a hole in it, as another man does a counterfeit roopee. The gold and silver coin is very frequently counterfeited; but the coiner is not punished with death. The weights and measures used by the Hindoos, are various, from eighty pounds to a barley corn.In casting up numbers, many count their fingers and finger joints.

The Hindoos are enveloped in the grossest superstition, not only as idolators, but in their dread of a great variety of supernatural beings, and in attaching unfortunate consequences to the most innocent actions.* They never go across a rope which ties an animal, nor across the shadow of a bramhin or an image; this is a rule laid down in one of the shastris, for which no reason is assigned. We may suppose, however, with respect to the shadow of a bramhun or an image, that the rule is meant to preserve a proper reverence in the minds of the people.

* The Hindoos consult astrologers on many occasions: the questions they ask refer to almost all the affairs of life: as, whether an article bought for sale will produce profit or not; whether a child in the womb will be a boy or a girl; whether a wife will bear children or not; when certain family troubles will be over; whether a cause pending in a court of justice will be decided in a person's favour or not; whether a person will enjoy prosperity in a new house which he is building or not; whether a person will acquire riches or not; whether a person's death wil happen at a holy place or not; how many wives a person will marry; which wife will be most beautiful; which wife a person will love most; how many children by each wife; how long a person will live ; at the time of death, will a person retain his senses or not; at that time, which son will be present; a youth asks, which god he shall choose as his guardian deity; shall he choose his father's spiritual guide or a new one, &c, &c.

:

Many persons in Bengal are called dainus, or witches, whose power is exceedingly dreaded they are mostly old women: a man of this description is called Khokěsů. Amongst other things, it is said, they are able, while sitting near another, imperceptibly to draw all the blood out of his body, and by a look, to make a person mad. If a daina shakes her hair in a field at night, it is said, that a number of dainŭs immediately assemble, and dance and play gambols together as long as they choose, and that if any one comes within the magic circle, he is sure to fall a victim to their power. When a person falls suddenly sick, or is seized with some new disorder, or behaves in an unaccountable manner, they immediately declare, that he is possessed by a daină. Sometimes the dainu is asked, why she has entered this person; she replies, that when she came to ask alms, he reproached her. Asking her who she is, she hesitates, and begs to be excused, as her family will be disgraced; but they again threaten her, when she gives a wrong name; but being again more severely threatened, at last she replies, "I am such a person, of such a village;" or, "I am such a person's mother.” The people then peremptorily order her to come out : she promises : and is then asked, on what side she will fall, and what she will take, in going out; whether she will take a shoe in her mouth or not. This she refuses, declaring that she belongs to a good family; but at last she consents to take a pan of water; and after two or three attempts, she actually carries the pan of water betwixt her teeth to the porch, where, after sitting down carefully, she falls down on the right side in a state of insensibility. The attendants then sprinkle some water in the person's face, repeating incantations, and in a few minutes the possessed comes to himself, arises, and goes into the house. This is the common method with dainus. The persons who have been thus bewitched, are said to be numerous: my imformant declared, that they had seen persons in these circumstances, who had been thus delivered from this possession. In former times, the Hindoo rajas used to destroy the cast of a daină.

The Hindoos have the strongest faith in the power of incantations to remove all manner of evils. The van incantation is said to empower an arrow shot into a tree to make it wither immediately. Many Hindoo married women, who are not blessed with children, wear incantations written with lac on the bark of the boorjj", in order

to obtain this blessing. They wear these charms, on the arm, or round the neck, or in the hair, inclosed in small gold or brass boxes. The Hindoos repeat incantations, when they retire to rest, when they rise, when they first set their foot on the ground, when they clean their teeth, when they eat, when they have done eating, when it thunders, when they enter on a journey, when their head or belly aches, when they see an idol, when they put on new clothes, when they want to kill or injure a suppos ed enemy, when they wish to cure the scab in sheep, &c. If diseases are not cured by an incantation, and the person dies, they say, the words of the incantation were not pronounced rightly, or a word was left out, or, they impute it to some other accident ;* the power of the incantation they never question. If a person recovers on whose account an incantation was uttered, they say, the incantation was well repeated. Some men have a great name for their supposed knowledge of incantations, and for their dexterity in using them for the destruction of enemies; some incantations are efficacious in proportion to the number of times they are repeated. When I asked a learned pundit, why the Hindoos had been so often subdued by other nations, seeing they were in possession of incantations so potent, he said, that those for destroying enemies were difficult to be procured.

Remarks on Country Scenery, made during a journey.-As the boat glides along, drawn by our boat-men, we perceive the corn in full growth on both sides of the river-proofs of the care of Him on whom all the creatures wait; and, if imagi nation could supply a pleasing variety of hill and dale, and some green hawthern hedges, we might fancy ourselves passing through the open fields in our own country; and the ascending larks, the reapers cutting the corn, and the boy driving the

Men who keep snakes and exhibit them to the public, assemble sometimes in great numbers, and pretend, by incantations, to subdue the power of poison after permitting snakes, retaining their venomous fangs, to bite them. On these occasions, two stages are erected near to each other, which are occupied by two snake combatants, who alternately challenge each other, using the most provoking language, like men about to engage in some desperate enterprize. When the challenge is accepted, the person takes the challenger's snake, and suffers it to bite him in the arms, and in any other parts of the body, while his friends at the bottom of the stage join him in repeating incantations, and encourage him, by their addresses, to persevere in this desperate folly. In some instances, the man falls from the stage, and the poison, spreading through his veins, and resisting all the power of their inchantments, precipitates the wretch, writhing with agony, into eternity. The Hindoos believe, that there are incan tations able to deprive serpents of all power of motion, and others to invigorate them again. At the above times, the power of incantations is said to be thus displayed, as well as in making the serpent move whichever way the inchanter pleases.