rior elegance of the patterns.-The arts of Europe, on the other hand, have been imitated in India, but without complete success; and some of the more ancient manufactures of the country are analogous to those, which have been now introduced from Europe. We allude to several sorts of cotton cloth. Dimities of various kinds and patterns, and cloths resembling diaper and damask-linen, are now made at Dhaka, Patna, Tanda, and many other places.-The neighbourhood of Moorshŭdubad is the chief seat of the manufacture of wove silk: tafeta, both plain and flowered, and many other sorts for inland commerce and for exportation, are made there, more abundantly than at any other place where silk is wove. Tissues, brocades, and ornamented gauzes are the manufacture of Benares. Plain gauzes, adapted to the uses of the country, are wove in the western and southern corner of Bengal. The weaving of mixed goods, made with silk and cotton, flourishes chiefly at Malda, at Bhigülü-poorů, and at some towns in the province of Burdwan. Filature silk, which may be considered as in an intermediate state, between the infancy of raw produce, and the maturity of manufacture, has been already noticed. A considerable quantity is exported to the western parts of India; and much is sold at Mirzapooră, a principal mart of Benares, and passes thence to the Marhatta dominions, and the centrical parts of Hindoost'hanů. The teser, or wild silk, is procured in abundance from countries bordering on Bengal, and from some provinces included within its limits. The wild silk worms are there found on several sorts of trees, which are common in the forests of Sylhet, Asam, and Dekhin. The cones are large, but sparingly covered with silks. In colour and lustre too, the silk is far inferior to that of the domesticated insect. But its cheapness renders it useful in the fabrication of coarse silks. The importation of it may be increased by encouragement; and a very large quantity may be exported in the raw state, at a very moderate rate. It might be used in Europe for the preparation of silk goods; and, mixed with wool or cotton, might form, as it now does in India, a beautiful and acceptable manufacture.*

11th Class. From a shōodrů and a female kshutriyŭ arose the Kurmikarŭs, or black* I hope the author will excuse the alterations made in the writing of the names in this article.

M

smiths, who are not very numerous: in populous villages there may be two or three families, but in some districts six or eight villages contain scarcely more than one. Under the superintendance of a European, the Bengal blacksmith becomes a good workman, but every thing which is the offspring of his own genius alone, is clumsy and badly finished. Amongst other articles, he makes arrows, bill-hooks, the spade-hoe, the axe, the farmer's weeding knife, the plough-share, the sickle, a hook to lift up the corn while the oxen are treading it out; as well as nails, locks, keys, knives, chains, scissars, razors, cooking utensils, builders' and joiners' tools, instruments of war, &c. Very few of these shoodrus are able to read.

12th Class. From a voishyŭ and a female kshůtriyй arose the Magŭdhús, viz. persons employed near the king to awake him in the morning, by announcing the hour, describing the beauties of the morning, lucky omens, and the evils of sloth; repeating the names of the gods, &c. They likewise precede the king in his journies, announcing his approach to the inhabitants of the towns and villages through which he is to pass.*

13th Class. From a kshŭtriyŭ and a female bramhin arose the Malakarŭs, or sellers of flowers. They prepare the wedding crown for the bridegroom, as well as the lamps and the artificial flowers carried in the marriage procession.† The malakarus also make gun-powder and fire-works; work in gardens; sell flowers to the bramhŭns for worship, and to others as ornaments for the neck, &c.

14th, 15th, and 16th Classes. From a kshůtriyŭ and a female bramhun arose the

* Another cast of people go two or three days' journey before the king, and command the inhabitants to clear and repair the ways; a very necessary step this in a country where there are no public roads. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth."

+ This crown is principally made with the stalk of a species of millingtonia, covered with ornaments, and paint ed with various colours; the lamps are made of talk mineral, and the flowers, of millingtonia painted: they are fixed on rods.

Flowers, to be presented to images, are also plucked from the trees by the worshipper, or by his wife, or children, or servants. Persons plucking these flowers, or carrying them to temples, in small baskets, may be constantly seen in a morning as the traveller passes along.

Sootus, or charioteers, and from a voishyŭ and a female shōodrů, the Tilees, and Tamboulees, or shop-keepers. The latter cultivate and sell the pawn leaf.*

17th Class. From a kayŭst’hŭ and a female voishyŭ arose the Tukshukus, or joiners. The Hindoo joiners make gods, bedsteads, window frames, doors, boxes, seats, pillars for houses, &c. They also delineate idol figures on boards, and sometimes paint the image; some engage in masonry. Formerly the Hindoo joiners had neither rule, compass, nor even a gimblet, nor indeed did the most skilful possess more than ten articles of what composes a joiner's chest of tools; but they have now added a number, and, under the superintendance of a European, are able to execute very superior work. In some villages, several families of joiners, in ten others, perhaps, not two individuals of this cast, are to be found. The carpenters are in general extremely ignorant; very few are able to read.

The Hin

18th Class. From the same casts sprang the Rujukus, or washermen. doo washerman was formerly unacquainted with the use of soap; he still makes a wash with the urine of cows, or the ashes of the plantain, or of the argemone mexicana. He does not rub the cloth betwixt his hands like the English washerwoman, but after it has been steeped in the wash, and boiled, he dips it repeatedly in water, and beats it on a board, which is generally placed by the side of a pool. He formerly knew nothing of ironing, clear-starching, or calendering; and he continues the practise of beating the clothes of the natives, after they are washed and dried, with a heavy mallet.

*No person need be told, that the use of the betle-nut, with lime, the leaves of the betle vine, and the inspissated juice of a species of mimosa, is universal throughout India. Ar other variety of the betle-nut, which is much softer than the common sort, is chewed singly; or with cardamums, spices or tobacco; or with the same things which were first mentioned, but loose instead of being wrapped up in the betle leaves. The com mon areca nut is the produce of Bengal; plantations of that beautiful palm tree are common throughout the lower parts of this province, and the nut is no inconsiderable object of inland commerce. The mimosa c'hadir (or catechu, if this barbarous name must be retained,) grows wild in almost every forest throughout India. Its inspissated juice (absurdly called terra japonica) is an import from ill cultivated districts into those which are better inhabited, and need not therefore be noticed in this place. The betle vine (a species of pepper) is cultivated throughout India; and its leaves are seldom transported to any considerable distance from the place of heir growth: covered vineyards containing this plant, or artificial mounds on which they have formerly stood, are to be seen in the precincts of almost every town or populous village. The culture is laborious, and is mostly the separate occupation of a particular tribe-Mr. Colebrooke.

Europeans employ these men as servants, or pay them a stipulated price, from half a crown to five shillings the hundred. They are very dishonest; frequently stealing or changing the clothes with which they are entrusted. The Hindoo women do not even wash the clothes of their own families.

19th Class. goldsmiths.

From a voidyŭ and a female voishyŭ sprung the Swărnukarus, or The principal articles wrought by this cast are images, utensils for worship, ornaments, and sundry dishes, cups, &c. used at meals. Gold and silver ornaments* are very much worn by Hindoos of both sexes; even persons in the lowest circumstances, in large towns, wear gold or silver rings on their fingers. The work of the swărnăkarus is very imperfectly finished. For very plain work, they charge one ana, for superior work two, three, or four anas, upon the weight of a roopee. They are charged, even by the shastrus, with a strong propensity to commit frauds, by mixing inferior metals with silver or gold. Raja Krishnů-ChundrůRayă cut off the hands of a goldsmith, who had mixed inferior metals in a golden image of Doorga; but afterwards, for his dexterity, granted him and his heirs an annual pension of a thousand roopees.

20th Class. From the same casts sprung the Soovărnă-bůnikus, who are chiefly money-changers, though called bankers. The private property of two or three native bankers in Calcutta, it is said, amounts to not less than a million of roopees each they have agents all over the country, through whom they carry on business, allowing ten per cent. interest on money. They buy and sell old gold and silver ; also the shells (kourees) used as money; and examine the value of wrought gold and silver. Some persons of this cast are employed by merchants and others, to

detect counterfeit money.

Each roopee contains in silver the value of fourteen anas, two anas being added for the expence of coining. Counterfeit roopees of the same weight as the current

* The fear of thieves was so great under the native governments, that persons were afraid of wearing costly ornaments, and often buried their property, in a brass or an earthen pot, in the earth: adding a lock of hair, a broken kouree or two, and some ashes, as a charm to secure it from the grasp of the messengers of Koovérů, the god of riches;-in other words, they feared that their own god would plunder their houses!

one are found in circulation; the persons issuing them, coin at less expence than at two anas the roopee. These bůnikus stand charged with almost the same propensity to commit frauds as the goldsmiths: some of them have, from the lowest state of poverty, raised themselves to the possession of immense wealth, several of the richest Hindoos in Calcutta belonging to this cast.

21st Class. From a gopu and a female voishyŭ arose the Toilŭkarăs, or oilmen, who prepare the oil, as well as sell it. They purchase the seeds, from which they prepare, in the mill erected in a straw house adjoining to their own, five kinds of oil. The oilmen are generally poor and ignorant : a few have acquired a trifling patrimony. The Hindoos use only oil lamps in their houses, knowing nothing of the use of candles.*

22d Class. From the same casts sprung the Abheerus, or milk-men. Several other casts sell milk, but these are the persons to whom this employment properly belongs. They are very illiterate.

The common Hindoo cow seldom gives more than about a quart of milk at a time, which is sold for two-pence. The milkman who depends wholly on his business, keeps a number of cows, and feeds them in the house with broken rice, rice straw, mustard seed from which the oil has been extracted, &c. He very rarely sends them out to graze. The men milk the cows, cut the straw, and feed them; the women gather the dung, and dry it in cakes for fuel, and it is actually sold in the market as fuel. The milkman also sells the urine of cows to washermen; he likewise sells curds, whey, and clarified butter. A good milch-cow is worth sixteen or twenty roopees; a bullock, six. For an account of the worship of the cow, see the succeeding volume.

Among the many domestic conveniencies introduced among civilized nations, of which the poorer Hindoos know nothing, may be reckoned, chairs, tables, couches, knives and forks, spoons, plates, dishes, almost all the apparatus of a cook-room, pins, buttons, buckles, needles, soap, stockings, hats, &c. &c. The poor have only one garment, and that a mere shred of cloth; three parts of the male population never wear shoes; modest women never wear them. The value of all the houshold furniture of a common Hindoo day-labourer will not amount to more than ten or twelve shillings.

To obtain food for horses, grass is cut up even by the roots.

† Stale butter, made hot over the fire, to prevent its becoming more rancid.