In the middle of August, about four months after sowing, the farmer cuts his corn with a sickle resembling in shape that used in England; the corn is then bound in sheaves, and thrown on the ground, where it remains two or three days: it is never reared up to dry: some even carry it home the day it is cut. Eight persons will cut a bigha in a day. Each labourer receives about two-pence a day, beside tobacco, oil to rub on his body, &c. When the corn is dry, the harvest-folks generally put the sheaves, which are very light, on their heads, and carry them home, each person taking twenty, thirty, or forty small sheaves: a few farmers carry the produce on bullocks. The poor are permitted to glean the fields after harvest, as in Europe.

The rice having been brought home, some pile it in round stacks, and others immediately separate it from the husk with bullocks; in performing which operation, the farmer fastens two or more bullocks together, side by side, and drives them round upon a quantity of sheaves spread upon the ground: in about three hours, one layer, weighing about thirty mins, will thus be trodden out. The Bengal farmers' muzzle the ox in treading out the corn,' till the upper sheaves are trodden to mere straw, and then unmuzzle them; a few muzzle them altogether. After the corn has been separated from the straw, one person lets it fall from his hands, while others, with large hand-fans, winnow it; which operation having been performed, the farmer either deposits the corn in what is called a gola, or sends it to the corn-merchant, to clear off his debt.—The gola is a low round house, in which the corn is deposited upon a stage, and held in on all sides by a frame of bamboos lined with mats, containing a door in the side.-The farmer piles his straw in stacks, and sells it, or gives it to his cattle. In Bengal, grass is never cut and dried like hay; and in the dry season when there is no grass, cattle are fed with straw: the scythe is unknown to the Bengal farmer, who cuts even his grass with the sickle.

In April, the farmer sows other lands for his second and principal harvest; at which time, as it is meant to be transplanted, he sows a great quantity of rice in a small space. About the middle of July, he ploughs another piece of ground, which, as the rains have set in, is now become as soft as mud, and to this place he transplants the

* Some farmers pay the labourers in kind.

rice which he sowed in April, and which is embanked to retain the water.

The

rice stands in water, more or less, during the three following months: if there should be a deficiency of rain after the transplanting, the farmer resorts to watering the field. In November or December he reaps this crop, which is greater or less than the former according to the soil and siruation.,

For watering land, an instrument called a jantŭ is often used in the north of Bengal it consists of a hollow trough of wood, about fifteen feet long, six inches wide, and ten inches deep, and which is placed on an horizontal beam, lying on bamboos fixed in the bank of a pond, or river, in the form of a gallows. One end of the trough rests upon the bank, where a gutter is prepared to carry off the water; and the other is dipped in the water, by a man standing on a stage near that end, and plunging it in with his foot. A long bamboo, with a large weight of earth at the farther end of it, is fastened to that end of the jantŭ near the river, and passing over the gallows before mentioned, poises up the jantŭ full of water, and causes it to empty itself into the gutter. One jantů will raise water three feet; and by placing these troughs one above another, water may be raised to any height. Sometimes, where the height is greater, the water is thrown into small reservoirs or pits, at a proper height above each other, and sufficiently deep to admit the next jaută to be plunged low enough to fill it. Water is sometimes thus conveyed to the distance of a mile or more, on every side of a large reservoir of water. In other parts of Bengal, they have different methods of raising water, but the principle is the same: in the south, I believe, they commonly use baskets.

Where the lands are good, and situated by the side of water which will not be dried up till the plant is matured, a third harvest is obtained.* In January, the farmer sows rice on slips of land near water, and, as it grows, waters it like a garden. If the water retire to a great distance, he transplants it nearer to the water; and about the middle or close of April, he cuts and gathers it.

Rice is the staff of life in Bengal, far beyond what bread is in England ; and indeed boiled rice, with greens, spices, &c. fried in oil, is almost the only food of the * A fourth harvest is obtained in the Dinagepore and other districts.

natives. Split pease boiled, or fried fish, are sometimes added, according to a person's taste and cast. Flesh, milk, and wheat flour, are comparatively little eaten : flesh is forbidden by the rules of the cast, and milk is too dear for the great body of the people, except in very small quantities. A indoo should not be capricious about his food, unless he be rich, and then indeed his dish may be made up in twenty different ways, either sweet or acid, hot with spices, or cooled with greens, roots, fruits, &c. The Hindoos eat vast quantities of sweatmeats; prepared chiefly with rice and sugar.

In those countries where the greatest quantities are produced, in a plentiful season, rice not separated from the husk is sold at about four münst for a roopee; in the neighbourhood of great cities, and at a distance from the corn districts, the price is necessarily higher. In cleaning the rice, more than half is found to be husk. The person who separates it from the husk,‡ receives for his trouble, out of sixteen sérs, about one sér, together with that which falls as dust in the cleaning. Such rice as people of the middling ranks eat, is sold, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, at one roopee eight anas, or two roopees, a min; but in the districts where the land is most productive, rice is extremely cheap, not being more than ten or twelve anas a măn. In some districts the rice is very white, thin, and small, and this is esteemed the best; in others it is much larger in size, but neither so clean nor so sweet. The districts about Patna, Rŭngpore, Dinagepore, Júngipore, Dhaka, Beerbhoom, &c. produce very great quantities of rice; from which places it is sent to Calcutta, Moorshŭdabad, and other large cities.

In the year 1767, there was a famine in Bengal,§ when eight out of every ten per*Nothing can exceed the abhorrence expressed by the Hindoos at the idea of killing cows, and eating beef, and yet the védŭ itself commands the slaughter of cows for sacrifice, and several pooranŭs relate, that at a sacrifice offered by Vishwamitrů, the bramhans devoured 10,000 cows which had been offered in sacrifice.

That is, about 320 lbs.

Rice is separated from the husk by the dhénkee or pedal, which is set up near the house, and used whenever needed. In large towns, cleaning rice is a trade, followed by different casts. As the rice is made wet before it is cleaned, the Hindoos are often upbraided as having lost cast by eating rice which has been made wet by Musulmans, and others.

In the Punjab, in 1785, a million of people are said to have died by famine.

30e said to have died. The year before the famine, the harvest was deficient rough the want of rain, and during the next year there was comparatively no rain. Those possessed of property were able, of course, to procure provisions better than others, and more of them survived; but in some houses, not more than one person, and in others not a soul, was left alive!

Beside rice, the Bengal farmer cultivates wheat, barley, pulse or liguminous plants of different sorts, mustard,* the indigo plant, linseed, turnips, radishes of one kind, sugar-canes, ginger, turmeric, tobacco, &c. In shady situations, where the soil is rich and loamy, ginger and turmeric flourish; the former is usually sold green; and only a small portion dried for consumption; the latter is sold in a powdered state. Amongst other kinds of pulse, the principal are, mushoori,† and booth.‡ tivation of the plantain is a profitable branch of husbandry.

The cul

Trees are rented in Bengal: a mango tree for one roopee annually ;§ a cocoa-nut, for eight anas; a jack, one roopee; a tamarind, one roopee; a betel-nut, four anas; a talu, four anas; a date, two anas; a vilwu, four anas; a lime tree, four anas. The palms are rented partly for the sake of the liquor which is extracted from them; with the juice of the date, molasses and sugar are made; and the juice of the talu is used like yeast. The trunks of some of the tală trees present the appearance of a series of steps, the bark having been cut at interstices from top to bottom, to permit the juice to ooze out. The liquor falls from a stick (driven into the trunk) into a pan suspended from the tree.

Three kinds are usually cultivated, shirsha, rayce, and shwet-shŭraha. The first is the most esteemed. + Ervum lens. Cicer arietinum. Hindoo kings formerly planted, as acts of merit, as many as a hundred thousand mango trees in one orchard, and gave them to the bramhúns, or to the public. The orchard, says the author of Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal, “is what chiefly contributes to attach the peasant to his native soil. He feels a superstitious predilection for the trees planted by his ancestor," and derives comfort and even profit from their fruit. Orchards of mango trees diversify the plains in every part of Bengal. The delicious fruit, exuberantly borne by them, is a wholesome variety in the diet of the Indian, and affords him gratification and even nourishment. The palmyra abounds in Vehar: the juice extracted by wounding its summit becomes, when fermented, an intoxicating beverage, which is eagerly sought by numerous natives, who violate the precepts of both the Hindoo and Mahomedan religions, by the use of inebriating liquors. The cocoa-nut thrives in those parts of Bengal which are not remote from the tropic: this nut contains a milky juice grateful to the palate, and is so much sought by the Indian, that it even becomes an object of exportation

to

Towards the latter end of October, the farmer sows wheat, or any of the other articles mentioned above, on new land, or on that from which the first harvest of rice was raised; and in the beginning of March, the wheat, barley, &c. are ripe. These kinds of grain are cut with the sickle; they are not trodden out by oxen, but beaten with a stick; and are laid up in golas. The price of wheat, in plentiful times and places, is about one mun, and of barley about two muns, for a roopee.

The natives of Bengal seldom eat wheat or barley, so that the consumption of these articles in the lower provinces is not great; the few who do, boil the wheat like rice, and eat it with greens and spices fried in oil.* Barley is sometimes fried and pounded, and the flour eaten, mixed with molasses, sugar, curds, tamarinds, plantains, or some other vegetable; and is also offered to the gods and deceased ancestors. In some of the upper provinces, the wheat and barley are very excellent; and in those parts the consump tion is considerable.

The different kinds of pulse cultivated in Bengal are commonly split, and fried for food; pulse makes also a part of the offerings to the gods; the comsumption is there. fore pretty large. Pease are sold at three or four muns for the roopee.

From the seeds of the mustard plant the natives make the common oil, which they to distant provinces. The date tree grows every where, but especially in Vébar; the wounded trunk of this tree yields a juice which is similar to that of the palmyra, and from which sugar is not unfrequently extracted. Plantations of areca are common in the centrical parts of Bengal: its nut, which is universally consumed throughout India, affords considerable profit to the planters. The bassia thrives even on the poorest soils, and abounds in the hilly districts: its inflated corols are esculent and nutritious, and yield by distillation an intoxicating spirit; and the oil, which is expressed from its seeds, is, in mountainous countries, a common substitute for butter. ---Clumps of bamboos, which, when once planted, continue to flourish so long as they are not too abruptly thinned, supply the peasant with materials for his buildings, and may also yield him profit." The bamboo is applied to innumerable uses by the natives: as, for the roofs, posts, sides, and doors of their houses; the oars and roofs of their boats, their baskets, mats, umbrellas, fences, palanqueens, fishing rods, scaffolding, ladders, frames for clay idols, &c. &c. A native christian was one day, in the presence of the author, shewing the necessity and importance of early discipline: to illustrate his proposition, he referred to the bamboo used in a wedding palanqueen, which, when quite young, is bent at both ends, to rest on the bearers' shoulders, and is tied and made to grow in this shape, which it retains ever after, so that, at the time of cutting, it is fit for use.

* Flour is ground by the hand, by different casts of Hindoos, and not unfrequently by women. The stones are round, about three cubits in circumference, and are made rough on the face with a chissel, and laid one upon another, with a hole in the centre of the uppermost to let down the corn. A piece of wood as a handle is

fastened in the uppermost, taking hold of which the person turns it round, and the flour falls out at the edges. K