one person in a village, perhaps, teaches three or four youths, in many cases his relations, who are 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 neighbour may call upon him. Medicines are never sold separately in a prepared state.

Beside the voidy us, some other casts practise medicine," as bramhŭns,1 kayust'hus, barbers, potters, &c. Many women have also acquired great celebrity by their nostrums. Indeed, it may be said of almost all the Bengalēē doctors, that they are old women guessing at the divinė qualities of leaves, roots, and the bark of trees, and pretending to cures as wonderful as those of which a quackdoctor boasts, mounted on a cart in an English marketplace. The women of the haree cast are employed as midwives, and the doivugnu bramhuns inoculate for the small-pox.

2d. Class. The Kayŭst'hus, commonly called by Euro

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 voidyus.

Yet a bramhún, practising physic, becomes degraded, so that other brambruns 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 doivŭgnů bramhůns 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.

peans, the writer cast, sprang from a kshutriyŭ and a female voishyŭ. There are four orders, called the Ootrŭrarhēē, Dukshinŭ-rarhēē, Vũngsŭjŭ and Varéndrů. Among these, Büllalŭsénů created three orders of koolēēnus, called Ghoshŭ, Vŭsoo, and Mitră; and forty-two orders of Shrotriyus, called Dé, Dŭttů," Kürů, Palitŭ, Shénŭ, Singhŭ, Dasŭ, Goohŭ, Gooptů, Vévŭtta, Sŭrŭkarŭ, Mŭllikŭ, Dhŭrů, Roodrŭ, Bhůdrů, Chůndrů, Vishwasŭ, Adityŭ, So, Hajra, &c.

The members of a shrotriyu family, by marrying amongst kooleenus 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 koolēēnus marry thirty or forty wives.

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

3d Class. From the union of a bramhŭn and a voishyŭ arose the Gundhŭ-vůniks,' or druggists. The shop of a

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 bramhüns whom Büllalŭsénů made koolēēnus, but the king refused to make them koolēēnus, because they would not acknowledge themselves to be the servants of the bramhuns.

* They have acquired wealth in the service of Musulmans and Europeans, › Gündhu, a smell, and vŭnik, a trader.

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 bramhun cooks.

4th Class. From a bramhun and a voishyŭ 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. Individuals 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 shōōdrus; and a few read the Bengalee translations of the Ramayunŭ, Mŭhabharůtů, &c.

5th Class. From a bramhŭn and a voishyŭ arose the Shunkhu-vůniks," or shell-ornament makers: these ornaments, worn by females on the wrist, are prescribed by the shastru. 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 z Shunkhů, a shell.

At the hour of death, a female leaves her ornaments to whomsoever she

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 shŭnkhŭ-vůniks, though not favourable to the acquisition of wealth. Except in large towns, this order of shōōdrus is not numerous.

6th Class From a kshutriyŭ and a female shooḍră arose the Agoorees, or husbandmen; but many other shōōdrus, are employed as farmers.

The Bengal farmers, according to some, are the tenants of the Honourable Company; according to others, of the jumidarus, or landholders. Whether the jumidarŭs 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 anas for every roopee paid to government; added to which, they constantly draw money from the tenants for servants' wages, also 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 har

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. b From jumeen, land, and darŭ, a possessor.

An ana is about two-pence English.

One rojyŭt in a thousand villages may be found possessed of great wealth, and one in three villages who possesses forty or fifty cattle, and is not in debt.

vest, 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 agent of the jümidarŭ 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 a 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.

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A bigha is in some parts eighty, in others eighty-three, and in others eighty-seven cubits 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 Europeans 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, numerous."