a low wooden stool, in the house; they can sit on their hams for hours together without fatigue. They never walk nor ride out for exercise; and very few keep horses. The Bengalee towns are formed into the eastern, western, northern, southern, and central divisions. In one part, the Hindoos reside, in another, the Musulmans, in another, native Portuguese. The Hindoo part is subdivided, and the different parts contain bramhŭns, kayŭst'hus, weavers, oil-makers, washermen, barbers, husbandmen, potters, &c.: these divisions are not very exactly observed, though in large towns the names, and something of this custom, may be perceived. All the Hindoo large towns contain at least one market place; in them are found many shops called Moodee-dokanus, at which various things are sold, as rice, split pease, salt, oil, clarified butter, flour, wood, earthenware, lamps, fruits, mats, sugar, sweetmeats, treacle, betel, &c. There are also separate shops for wood, salt, cloth, earthenware, brass utensils, rice, pease, oil, ornaments, tobacco, sweetmeats, shoes, spices, &c. The bankers sell kourees, weigh and change money, buy and sell old ornaments, &c. The moodee and confectioner's shops are most numerous. Shops are generally built with clay, but in very large towns many are of brick. The Hindoos have also market days (hatus), when the sellers and buyers assemble, sometimes, in an open plain, but in general in market places. The noise in a market place in England is comparatively small; but the noise of Bengalee hatis may be heard at the distance of half a mile, as though ten thousand voices were sounding at once. There are no Hindoos in Bengal who make paper, though there are in other parts of Hindoost'han; no booksellers, nor bookbinders; the Musulmans make paper and bind books. Amongst all the millions of Hindoos, there is not to be found perhaps a single bookseller's shop. The Hindoos make ink with common soot, and also with the water in which burnt rice has been soaked, but these kinds of ink are very inferior. A third sort is made with amŭlŭkēē,” and hŭrēē-tŭkēē,” which is steeped in water placed in an iron pan. After these ingre dients have been soaked for some time, the water is drained off, and poured upon some catechu, and then placed in the sun, where it is now and then stirred for two or three days: the maker next puts some pounded sohaga1 into it; and then it is ready for use. When the Hindoos write upon the leaves of the tală tree, they use ink prepared like the second sort, mixing lac with it. They generally write with a reed, never with the Europe pen. A number of persons procure their subsistence as hawkers or criers: these consist of fish-women, confectioners, ear-cleaners, men who recover 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 The Hindoos connect religious ceremonies with some of their public fairs, and, in consequence, vast crowds assemble, and worship the god and buy something for their families, at the same time. • Emblic myrobalan. h Yellow myrobalan. ¡Borax. 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 sloping 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 bramhŭns obtain a scanty maintenance. The Musulmans alone make and sell fireworks. 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 * A mun is about Olls 40 sérs make one mun; a roopee, is 2 shillings and 6 pence; an ana, two pence. m 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 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 halfpence, and in others two pence. 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, fruit, &c. cost them nothing; The common river turtle is frequently caught by the line; some brambŭns eat it. m Turkies are no where met with far from Calcutta, unless carried by Europeans. " Wild peacocks are very numerous in some parts of Bengal. The flesh of this animal is offered up in the shraddliŭ, and eaten both by bramhuns and shōōdrus. ▸ Boys and girls, for domestic servitude, are bought and sold at fairs in some parts of Bengal, particularly at Huree-hŭrŭ-chůtrů, a place on the banks of the Gundukēē. 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 threepence a day; masons, five-pence, and common carpenters four-pence and six-pence; good carpenters, about a shilling a day. 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 berbs: 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.); whilst 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 annually for the rent of a few yards of land, and on this, at his own expense, he rears his hut. A rich land-owner frequently gives to bramhăns, 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-mohurs, 4 |