Amongst other articles, he makes arrows, bill-hooks, the spade-hoe, the axe, the farmer's weeding knife, the ploughshare, 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 shōōdrus are able to read.

12th Class. From a voishyŭ and a female kshŭtriyǎ arose the Magudhus, 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.

15th Class. From a kshŭtriyŭ and a female bramhun arose the Malakarus, 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.d The malakarus also make gun-powder and fire-works; work in gardens; sell flowers to the bramhuns for worship, and to others as ornaments for the neck, &c.

e

Another cast of people go two or three days' journey before the king, and command the inhabitants to clear and repair the way; 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 millingtomia, covered with ornaments, and painted 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

two fathers: and in this way, persons are united in wedlock with as much indifference as cattle are yoked together; matrimony becomes a mere matter of traffic, and children are disposed of according to the pride of parents, without the parties, who are to live together till death, having either choice or concern in the business.

:

These very early marriages are the sources of the most enormous evils: these pairs, brought together without previous attachment, or even their own consent, are seldom happy. This leads men into unlawful connexions, so common in Bengal, that three parts of the married population, I am informed, keep concubines. Many never visit, nor take their wives from the house of the father-in-law, but they remain there a burthen and a disgrace to their parents; or, they abandon the paternal roof at the call of some paramour. Early marriages also give rise to another dreadful evil almost all these girls after marriage remain at home, one, two, or three years; and during this time numbers are left widows, without having enjoyed the company of their husbands a single day : these young widows, being forbidden to marry, almost without exception, become prostitutes. To these miserable victims of a barbarous custom are to be added, all the daughters of the kooleenus, who never leave the house of the father, either during the life, or after the death of their husbands, and who invariably live an abandoned life. The consequences resulting from this state of things, are, universal whoredom, and the perpetration of unnatural crimes to a most shocking extent.

Some days or weeks before a wedding takes place, a second written agreement is made between the two fathers, engaging that the marriage shall take place on

such a day. This is accompanied sometimes with the promise of a present for the daughter, which may amount to ten, fifty, or more roopees. On signing this agreement, a dinner is given, in general by the girl's father; and gifts are presented to the bramhuns present, as well as to the ghǎtǎků, according to the previous agreement, perhaps five, six, eight, or ten roopees. Where a present is made to the father of the girl, which is very common at present, the cast of the boy is not very respectable: in the most reputable marriages, the father not only gives his daughter without reward, but bears the expenses of the wedding, and presents ornaments, goods, cattle, and money to the bridegroom.

Three or four days before the marriage, the bodies of the young couple are anointed with turmerick, and the boy, day and night, till the wedding, holds in his hand the scissars with which the natives cut the betle-nut, and the girl holds in her hand the iron box which contains the black colour with which they daub their eyelids. The father of the boy entertains all his relations, and others; to relations giving a cooked dinner, to others sweetmeats, &c. and the father of the girl gives a similar entertainment to all his relations. After this, the rich relations feast the bridegroom and family, and add presents of cloth, &c. On the day before the marriage, the parents on each side send presents of sweetmeats amongst their friends.

During the night preceding the wedding, the most hideous noises are made at the houses of the two parents, with instruments whose noise resembles that of a kettle-drum. In the beginning of the night, the women leave four pots containing lamps at each of the two houses, expressing

their wishes for the long life of the bride and bridegroom. They also place at each house two balls of rice flour in the form of sugar-loaves, which they call Shree; and towards the close of the night, they eat rice with the girl and boy. These customs are accompanied with much hilarity.

Early in the morning, the women and female neighbours again assemble, and taking with them a pan of water, the pots which contain the oil-lights, the balls of rice flour, and some betle-nut, go round to the neighbours, and give to each a morsel of the betle-nut. On returning home, in some towns, they place the boy and girl, at different houses, on a bamboo door, when the mother, as an expression of her joy and good-will, lights some straw from the thatch, and turns it round the right foot of the boy, or girl, three several times; after which the persons present lift up the door, with the boy or girl placed on it, three, five, or seven times; the women then, taking some thread, and stretching it, walk round them four times, and then tie this thread with some blades of dōōrvů grass, round the right arm of the boy, and the left arm of the girl. They prepare also a kind of ointment with oil and spices fried together, and rub it on the head and all over the bodies of the young couple. All these actions have no other meaning, than that they are tokens of joy. In the forenoon, at both houses, to secure the happiness of the boy and girl, they present offerings to deceased ances tors. The bridegroom, as a mark of affection, sends to the bride a present of fish, betle, sweetmeats, plantains, sour milk, and cloth: in some cases, the bride makes a similar present to the bridegroom. In the course of the afternoon, the heads of the young couple are shaved; and

One of the names of Lukshmee, the goddess of prosperity.

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 gopŭ and a female voishyŭ arose the Toilukarus, 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 Abhēērus, 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 twopence. 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

h Among the many domestic conveniences 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 household 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.