rain are frequently tremendous, tearing up trees, overturning houses, &c.; and in the wet season, at times, the rain descends in sheets rather than in drops, so that in less than twenty-four hours a whole district is overflowed.

The hot winds are trying, especially in the upper provinces, though some Europeans are very healthful at this season. Through what is called the prickly heat, the bodies of multitudes, especially new-comers, are almost covered with pimples, which prick like thorns. Exposure to the sun very often brings on bilious fevers; boils are also very common during the hot season. I have sometimes wondered that the rheumatism should be so prevalent in Bengal, but I suppose it is owing to the heat leaving the body in so unfit a state to bear the chills of the night air; still the fishermen, exposed to the blazing sun through the day, sleep without apparent harm in the open air on their boats all night, almost without any covering: it is common too for multitudes of the natives to sleep under trees, and even in the open air by the side of their shops or houses. In this respect, we see that the body is whatever habit makes it: he who sleeps on a stone or a a board, is as much refreshed as the man who lies on a feather-bed; and he who sleeps on his open boat, or in a damp place in the open street, with a rag for a coverlid, sleeps as soundly as the man who shuts up his room for fear of the night-dews, and creeps under a thick coverlid, tucking the curtains round him.' Many poor natives

'Gauze, or what are called musquitoe curtains, are absolutely necessary in this country, these insects being peculiarly troublesome. Millions upon millions infest the houses in Calcutta, where even a plough-boy would in vain seek rest unless protected by curtains. Possessing this advantage, a person will scarcely be able to sleep; for these troublesome guests haunt the bed, hang on the curtains, and excite in the person, half asleep, the fear VOL. III.

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sleep in places, where, if some people were to set their feet they would receive cold. Almost on the soft earth, with a single cloth for their covering, multitudes may be seen every night lying by the side of the street in Calcutta. One night's lodging of this kind would, in all probability, hurry a European to his grave.

Were I disposed to pursue a contrast between the climate of Bengal and that of England, it would be easy to turn the scale on either side. For instance, it might be said, that in Bengal nature always appears in an extravagant mood. In the rainy season, during several months, the rains descend in torrents, inundate the plains, and by giving an amazing stimulus to vegetation, transform the whole country into a wilderness. In the summer, the beams of the sun smite to death the weary traveller, and burn the earth to a cinder. When the winds blow, they either scorch you, or rise into an infuriated tempest,

that they are coming to attack him in a body, like a pack of blood-hounds. Their proboscis is very long; and, as soon as it enters the flesh, it pricks very sharply; and if not driven away, the musquitoe fills himself with blood till it shines through his skin. If he be perceived when thus distended with blood, he becomes an easy prey, but if you smite him, your clothes will be covered with blood. The natives are less disturbed by these insects, as they give their skin a coating of oil; but Europeans just arrived are a delicious repast, and often happens, that they are so covered with musquitoe bites, that it would be thought they had caught the measles. When a person is very irritable, he scratches his arms, legs, &c. till they become full of wounds, and he thus inflicts on himself still greater torments. A curious scene is exhibited when a European is disappointed in obtaining curtains: he lies down, and begins to be sleepy perhaps, when the musquitoes buz about his ear, and threaten to lance him. While he drives them from his ears and nose, two or three sit on his feet, and draw his blood; while he is aiming his blows at those on his feet, others again seize his nose, and whatever part assumes the resting posture, that part becomes a prey to the musquitoes, who never give up the contest till they have sucked to the full; and can never be kept off, but by the person's sitting up, and fighting with them all night.

hurling to destruction the tall pines, and the lowly dwellings of the cottagers; and even the cold of Bengal was well described by an honest Scotchman, "I can bear the chilling blasts of Caledonia, but this-this cold, I know not what to do with it." I might add, that in Bengal the flowers are not so sweet, the birds do not sing so charmingly, the gardens are not so productive, the fruit is not so various and delicious, nor are the meadows so green as in England.

On the other hand, it might be urged, that in Bengal we have none of the long and dreadful frosts, killing every vegetable, as in England; none of that sleety, dripping, rainy weather that is experienced there, so that in a sense it rains in England all the year round, while in Bengal the sky is clear the greater part of the year. In England the days are so gloomy, that multitudes sink into a despondency which terminates in insanity, and many die by their own hands; there the harvest is often destroyed by bad weather, or fails for want of sun. In England, many perish in the snow, and with the cold; your fingers ache, and your back is chilled, even by the fire-side, and multitudes die of colds, consumptions, asthmas, and many other diseases, the effects of the climate.

Now, by softening down the disadvanges, and bringing forward the favourable circumstances, on either side, how easy would it be to mislead a person who had not seen both countries. If a fair and just comparison be formed between England and Bengal, as it respects climate, I should think England ought to have the preference, but not in the degree that some persons imagine;

If the following extraordinary assertion of Forster, in his notes to

it is most certain, that the middling and lower orders do not suffer so much from the weather in Bengal as the same classes do from the cold and wet in England; for to resist the heat, a man wants only an umbrella made of leaves, or he may sit under a tree; while, to resist the cold, rain, hail, and snow of a northern climate, without thick clothes, a good fire, and a warm house and bed, he is in danger of perishing.

If there be any thing peculiar to Bengal which makes it unhealthful, it is, no doubt, the flatness of the country, and its consequent inundations and stagnant waters.

7th Class. From a kshůtriyŭ and a female shōōdrů arose the Napitus," or barbers. The Hindoos, even the poorest, not only never shave themselves, they never cut their own nails; and some barbers devote themselves to the work of cleaning ears. These persons may be seen in the streets, with a kind of skewer, covered at one end with cotton, in their hands, seeking employment. The wives of the barbers cut the nails, and paint the feet and

Bartolomeo's Voyage to the East Indies, be just, the preference must certainly be given to the climate of England: "The intense heat in the tropical regions is destructive both to men and animals. At Calcutta, which lies at a considerable distance from the line, wild pigeons sometimes drop down dead at noon, while flying over the market-place. People who are then employed in any labour, such as writers in the service of the East India Company, whose correspondence often will not admit of delay, sit naked immersed up to the neck in large vessels, into which cold water is continually pumped by slaves from a well. Such a country cannot be favourable to health or longe vity."-We should think not. What say you, writers to the Hon. Company, up to the neck in water ;-is not this an abominable country?

"One of the Hindoo poets has fixed a sad stigma on the barbers, by a verse to this purport:-Among the sages, Narudu,-among the beasts, the jackal-among the birds, the crow—and among men, the barber—is the most crafty.

the hands, of the Hindoo women; these women never have their hair cut; the more and the heavier it is, the more ornamental it is considered; they wash it by rubbing clay into it at the time of bathing. Rich men are shaved every day; the middling ranks once in six or eight days, and the poor ones in ten or fifteen. The poor give about a farthing; the middling and upper ranks, about a halfpenny a time. The barber makes use of water, but not of soap; yet the Hindoo manifests the utmost patience while he shaves all round the head, (leaving a tuft of hair in the middle at the back of the head, which is commonly tied in a knot), his upper lip, chin, forehead, armpits, sometimes his breast, his ears, the inside of his nose, his wrists, and ancles, round his eye-brows, &c. Some do not shave the upper lip; and mendicants leave the whole beard. Shaving is never done in the house, nor in a shop, but sometimes under a small shed, or a tree; very often in the street or road. The Hindoos do not wear wigs the climate does not require it; and it would shock their feelings exceedingly to wear the hair of another, especially of a dead man.

The barbers, like their English brethren, dabble a little in pharmacy; but they neither bleed people, nor draw teeth, these remedies being seldom resorted to in Bengal. They cut the finger and toe nails with an instrument like an engraver's tool; and with another they

They consider their hair as an essential ornament, and the cutting it off as a shocking degradation, the mark of widowhood. "If it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered." 2 Cor. xi. 5. The Hindoo women are very careful also to have their heads covered, and never fail to draw the veil over their faces on the approach of a stranger.

The barbers have no poles, nor are there any such things as sign-boards against the shops in Bengal.