maintained at their own homes. Three, four, or five years are spent with the tutor, who, however, derives no emolument from his pupils, being content with the honour and merit of bestowing knowledge. After completing his education, a young man begins to prepare medicine, and to practise, as his neighbours may call upon him. Medicines are never sold separately in a prepared state.

Beside the voidyus, some other casts practise medicine,* as bramhuns,† kaist’hŭs, barbers, potters, &c. Many women have also acquired great celebrity by their nostrums. Indeed, it may be said of almost all the Bengalee doctors, that they are old women guessing at the divine qualities of leaves, roots, and the bark of trees, and pretending to cures as wonderful as those of which a quack-doctor boasts, mounted on a cart in an English market-place. The women of the haree cast are employed as midwives, and the doivogn bramhuns inoculate for the small-pox.§

2d Class. The Kaist'hus, commonly called by Europeans, the writer cast, sprang from a kshutriyŭ and a female shōodrů. There are four orders, called the Ootrůrarhēc,|| Dŭkshinǎ-rarhee, Vũngůjă and Varéndrů. Among these, Bullalisénă created four orders of koolēnus, called Ŭdhikaree, Ghoshi, Vusoo, and Mitră; and fortytwo orders of Shrotriyus, called Dé, Dăttů,¶ Kără, Palitů, Shénů, Singhĩ, Dasă, Goohŭ, Gooptů, Vévůtta, Sŭrŭkară, Mülliků, Dhŭrů, Roodrů, Bhůdrů, Chůndrů, Vishwasu, Adityй, So, Hajra, &c.

The barbers, by waiting upon Europeans, have obtained some information respecting the efficacy of calomel, and English salves; and, are in many cases, able to perform cures beyond the power of the voidyŭs.

+ Yet a bramhun, practising physic, becomes degraded, so that other bramhuns will not eat with him. †The Hindoo women are greatly shocked at the idea of a man-midwife; and would sooner perish than employ one.

The ravages of this disease are very extensive in Bengal. Could Europeans of influence engage the doivugnă bramhuns, to enter heartily into the use of the vaccine matter, the good done would be boundless: the difficulties in the way of the cow-pox among the Hindoos are not great, and I believe the use of the vaccine matter is spreading daily in Calcutta, and at the different stations, through the influence of Europeans. It can only prevail, however, through the regular practitioners.

Some families of this order have a regular custom, at their feasts, of throwing all their food away after it has been set before them, instead of eating it.

¶ The Duttus came with the five bramhuns whom Bullalŭsénů made koolēēnus, but the king refused to make them koolēšnús, because they would not acknowledge themselves to be the servants of the bramhúns. `

The members of a shrotriyu family, by marrying amongst koolēnus for three or four generations, are raised to great honour, and, at the feasts, first receive garlands of flowers, and the red paint on their foreheads. Some of the kayŭst'hŭ kooleenus marry thirty or forty wives.

The kayust his perform the same daily ceremonies as the bramhuns, but they select their prayers from the tintrus. They are in general able to read and write; a few read the works of the poets and the medical shastrus; and some understand medicino better than the voidyus. Among them are found merchants, shop-keepers, farmers, clerks, &c. In Bengal the bramhuns are far more numerous than the kayust'hus, yet, in proportion to their numbers, there are more rich kayŭst'hŭs than bramhüns.*

3d Class. From the union of a bramhin and a voishyŭ arose the Gundhu-vůniks,† or druggists. The shop of a respectable Hindoo druggist contains many hundred kinds of drugs and spices; and some are rich. Among this class of shoodrus are farmers, merchants, servants, &c. They marry among themselves, but bramhuns shew them a degree of respect, by visiting them, and eating sweetmeats at their houses. They expend large sums at feasts, when, to please their guests, they employ bramhŭn cooks.

4th Class. From a bramhún and a voishyň also arose the Kasharees, or brass founders. More than fifty articles of brass, copper, and mixed metal, are made for sale by this cast; some of them, however, are of coarse and clumsy manufacture. Indivi

duals of this cast are found amongst husbandmen, labourers, servants, &c. Their matrimonial alliances are contracted among themselves; few are rich, and the very poor are few; they read and write better than many other shoodrus; and a few read the Bengalee translations of the Ramayŭnă, Muhabharŭtu, &c.

5th Class.

From a bramhun and a voishyŭ arose the Shunkhi-vůniks,‡ or shellornament makers: these ornaments, worn by females on the wrist, are prescribed by

*They have acquired wealth in the service of Musulmans and Europeans.

+ Gůndhu, a smell, and

the shastră.

In Calcutta and its neighbourhood, women wear six or eight of these rings on each wrist; and in the east of Bengal they cover the lower part of the arm with them. The prices vary from one to eight roopees a set, of six or eight for each wrist; joined sets, which will cover the arm up to the elbow, are sold at different prices from ten to twenty roopees: the latter will last during two or three generations ;* but when six or eight only are worn loose on each arm, they break in three or four years. Persons of this cast have become farmers, labourers, &c. while individuals from other casts have begun to follow the occupation of shunkhŭ-văniks, though not favourable to the acquisition of wealth. Except in large towns, this order of shoodrus is not numerous.

6th Class.

From a kshŭtriyŭ and a female shōodrů arose the Agoorees, or husbandmen; but many other shoodrus, are employed as farmers.

The Bengal farmers, according to some, are the tenants of the Honourable Company; according to others, of the jumidarus,† or land-holders. Whether the jumidarus be the actual or the nominal proprietors of the land, I leave to be decided by others; they collect and pay the land-tax to government, according to a regular written assessment, and are permitted to levy upon the tenants, upon an average, as much as four anast for every roopee paid to government; added to which, they constantly draw money from the tenants for servants' wages, as presents (from new tenants), gifts towards the marriage expences of their children, &c.

The farmers in general obtain only a bare maintenance from their labours, and we in vain look amongst them for a bold, happy, and independent yeomanry, as in England; a few are able to pay their rents before the harvest, but many borrow upon the credit of the crop, and pay after harvest. The great body of the Bengal farmers, however, are the mere servants of the corn-merchant, who engages to pay the

At the hour of death, a female leaves her ornaments to whomsoever she pleases: sometimes to her spiritual guide, or to the family priest. A person not bequeathing something to these persons, is followed to the next world with anathemas. From jumeen, land, and darŭ, a possessor. An ana is about two-pence One roiy ut in a thousand villages may be found possessed of great wealth, and one in three villages

English.

who possesses forty or fifty cattle, and is not in debt.

agent of the jimidară the rent for the cultivator, and the farmer agrees to surrender all the produce of his land to the corn-merchant, and to receive from him what is necessary for the maintenance of his family till the harvest. If the produce be more than the debt, the farmer receives the surplus. If it be less, it is written as debt in his name, and he engages to pay it out of the produce of the next year. When he is unfortunate in his harvest, the poor farmer's little all is sold by the corn-merchant, and he is turned out upon the unfeeling world, to beg his bread as a religious mendicant, or, to perish.

The tax to the Company, I am informed by the natives, is in proportion to the value of the land in some places, where the mulberry plant for silk-worms is reared, the tax is more than five roopees a bigha ;* where rice, &c. are cultivated, the tax fluctuates from eight anas to two roopees the bigha.

About the middle of February, if there should be rain, the farmer ploughst his ground for rice for the first time; and again in March or April: the last ploughing is performed with great care, and if there have been rain, the ground is weeded. Sometimes rain, at this period, is delayed fifteen days or a month; but in all cases the land is ploughed three times before sowing. Two good bullocks, worth from eight to

A bigha is in some parts eighty, in others eighty-three, and in others eighty-seven cubi's square. The lands on which the indigo plant is cultivated also pay a greater tax than rice lands. "The manufacture of indigo appears to have been known and practised in India at the earliest period, says Mr. Colebrooke. From this country, whence the dye obtains its name, Europe was anciently supplied with it, until the produce of America engrossed the market. Within a very late period, the enterprize of a few Europears in Bengal has revived the exportation of indigo, but it has been mostly manufactured by themselves The nicety of the process, by which the indigo is made, demands a skilful and experienced eye. The indigo of Bengal, so far as its natural quality may be solely considered, is superior to that of North America, and equal to the best of South America. Little, however, has hitherto been gained by the speculation. The successful planters are few; the unsuccessful, numer

ous."

+ A Bengal plough is the most simple instrument imaginable: it consists of a crooked piece of wood, sharpened at one end, and covered with a plate of iron which forms the plough-share. A wooden handle, about two feet long, is fixed to the other end cross-ways; and in the midst a long straight piece of wood, or bamboo, called the eesha, which goes between the bullocks, and falls on the middle of the yoke, to which it hangs by means of a peg, and is tied by a string. The yoke is a neat instrument, and lies over the necks of two bullocks, just before the hump, and has two pegs descending on the side of each bullock's neck, by means of which it is tied with a cord under the throat. There is only one man, or boy, to each plough, who'with one hand holds the plough, and with the other guides the animals, by pulling them this or that way by the tail, and driving them forward with a stick,

sixteen roopees each, will plough, in one season, fifteen or twenty bighas of land, and, if very good cattle, twenty-five bighas.* Horses are never used in agriculture.

The farmer, about the beginning of May, casts his seed into the ground, in much the same manner as the English farmer; and harrows it with an instrument like a ladder; upon which a man stands to press it down.

After sowing, the field is watched during the day to keep off the birds. If there should not be rain in four or five days after sowing, and if the sun should be very hot, the seed is nearly destroyed, and in some cases, the ploughing and sowing are repeated. The farmer preserves the best of his corn for seed; twenty-four pounds of which, worth about two anas, are in general sufficient for one bigha. Should he be obliged to buy seed, it will cost double the sum it would have done in the time of harvest.

When the rice has grown half a foot high, the farmer, to prevent its becoming too rank, also to loosen the earth, and destroy the weeds, draws over it a piece of wood with spikes in it; and when it is a root high, he weeds it.†

The corn being nearly ripe, the farmer erects a stage of bamboos in his field, sufficiently high to be a refuge from wild beasts, covers it with thatch, and places a servant there to watch, especially during the night. When a buffalo, or a wild hog, comes into the field, the keeper takes a wisp of lighted straw in one hand, and in the other a dried skin containing broken bricks, pots, &c. bound up on all sides, and in t manner he approaches the animal, shaking his lighted straw, and making a loud noise, on which it immediately runs away.

* The shastrŭ directs, that the husbandman shall not plough with less than four bullocks, but this is not attended to, as many are not rich enough to buy and maintain four bullocks. If a farmer plough with a cow or a bullock, and not with a bull, the shastrŭ pronounces all the produce of his ground unclean, and unfit to be used in any religious ceremony. It has become quite common, however, at present, to plough with bullocks, and in the etern parts of Bengal many yoke cows to the plough.

+ Land, after it has been ploughed, is cleaned with a half-hooked knife, called nirénee; and, as it becomes inconceivably more foul than in England, this part of the farmer's labour is very great. A very excellent instrumen in the form of aloe, with a handle about two feet and a half long, and the iron as wide and strong as a surve, c. ld whoo tub, water the purpose of spade and hoe.