It is my intention in the following pages to endeavour to convey to the mind of the European reader some distinct idea of the present manners and customs, usages and institutions of my Hindoo countrymen, illustrative of their peculiar domestic and social habits and the inner life of our society, the minutiÆ of which can never be sufficiently accessible to Europeans. "It is in the domestic circle that manners are best seen, where restraint is thrown aside, and no external authority controls the freedom of expression."

I shall begin with a general account of the normal Hindoo household, as at once the living centre and meeting point of the various elements of our society. But as it is impossible to describe the manifold gradations of social condition in a single sketch, I shall draw from the domestic arrangements of a family of one of the higher castes and provided with a convenient share of worldly prosperity. Only the principal elements in the group can now be alluded to, and some of them will be described with greater detail in separate sketches.

The family domicile of a Hindoo is, to all intents and purposes, a regular sanctum, not easily accessible to the outside world. Its peculiar construction, its tortuous passages, its small compartments and special apportionment, obviously indicate the prevalence of a taste "cabined, cribbed, confined," and preclude the admittance of free ventilation and free intercourse. The annals of history have long since established the fact that the close confinement system which exists in Bengal, was mainly owing to the oppressions of the Moslem conquerors, and more recently to the inroads of the Pindaree marauders, commonly termed Burghees, the tales of whose depredations are still listened to with gaping mouths and terrified interest.

The gradual consolidation of the British power having established on a firm basis the security of life and property, the people are beginning to avail themselves of an improved mode of habitation, affording better facilities of accommodation and a wider range of the comforts and conveniences of life. From time out of mind there has existed in the country a sort of domestic and social economy, bearing a close resemblance to the old patriarchal system, recognising the principle of a common father or ruler of a family, who exercises parental control over all. The system of a joint Hindoo family[1] partaking of the same food, living under the same roof from generation to generation, breathing the same atmosphere, and worshipping the same god, is decidedly a traditional inheritance which the particular structure of Hindoo society has long reared and fostered. This side of the subject will be enlarged upon in its proper place.

A few words about the respective position and duties of the principal members of a Hindoo household will be in place at the outset. I shall, therefore, begin with the KartÁ or male head, who, as the term imports, exercises supreme control over the whole family, so that no domestic affair of any importance may be undertaken without his consent or knowledge. The financial management, almost entirely regulated by his superior judgment, seldom or never exceeds the available means at his disposal. The honor, dignity and reputation of the family wholly depend on his prudence and wisdom, weighted by age and matured by experience. His own individual happiness is identified with that of the other members of the household. There is a proverbial expression among the Natives, teaching that the counsel of the aged should be accepted for all the practical purposes of life (except in a few unhappy instances to be noticed hereafter) and the rule exerts a healthy influence on the domestic circle. As the supreme Head he has not only to look after the secular wants of the family but likewise to watch the spiritual needs of all the members, checking irregularities by the sound discipline of earnest admonition. In accordance with the usual consequences of a patriarchal system, a respectable Hindoo is often obliged to support a certain number of hangers-on, more or less related to him by kinship. A brother, an uncle, a nephew, a brother-in-law, etc., with their families, are not unfrequently placed in this humiliating position, notwithstanding the currency of the trite apothegm,—which says, "it is better to be dependent on another for food than to live in his house." This saying is to be supplemented by another which runs thus: "Luckhee, the goddess of prosperity, always commands a numerous train." The proper significance of these phrases is but too practically understood and felt by those who have been unfortunate enough to come under their exemplification.

Next in point of importance in the category of the domestic circle is his wife, the Ghinni, or the female Head, whose position is a responsible one, and whose duties are alike manifold and arduous. She has to look after the victualling department, report to her husband or sons the exact state of the stores,[2] order what is wanted, account for the extra consumption of victuals, adopt the necessary precaution against being robbed, see that everyone is duly fed, and that the rite of hospitality is extended to the poor and helpless, watch that the rules of purity are practically observed in every department of the household, and make daily arrangements as to what meals are to be prepared for the day. The study of domestic economy engages her attention from the moment she undertakes the varied duties in the inner department of a household, the proper management of which, is, to her, a congenial occupation, becoming her sex, her position, her habitude, her taste. Independent of these domestic charges which are enough to absorb her mind, she has other duties to discharge, which shall be indicated hereafter.

The next chief constituents in the body of the household, are the daughters and daughters-in-law, whose relative positions and duties demand a separate notice. Viewed from their close relationship it is reasonable to conclude that they should bear the kindliest feelings to each other and evince a tender regard for mutual happiness, returning love for love and sympathy for sympathy. But, as elsewhere, unhappily, such is the depravity of human nature that the operation of antagonistic influences arising from dissimilar idiosyncracies, embitters some of the sweetest enjoyments of life. In the majority of cases, a nanad, the sister of the husband, though allied to another family, is nevertheless solicitous to minister to the domestic felicity of her vaja or the wife of his brother, but unhappily her intent is often misconstrued, and the sincerity of her motive questioned. Instead of an unclouded cordiality subsisting between them, the generous affection of the one is but ill-requited by the other. Hence, an unaccountable coldness commonly springs up between them which materially subtracts from the growth of domestic felicity. Shame on us that a vast amount of ignorance and prejudice yet renders us incapable of appreciating the highest end of the social state.

When the several female members of a household meet together, enlivened by the company of their neighbours and friends (such visits being few and far between), these first object of inquiry is generally the amount of ornaments possessed, their workmanship, their value. Few things please them better than a conversation on this subject, which from the absence of mental culture, almost wholly monopolizes their mind, despite the natural tendency of human intellect to a progressive development. If not thus absorbed, the time is usually frittered away by sundry petty frivolous inquiries of a purely domestic character. On matters of the most vital importance their notions are as crude and irrational as they are absurd and childish.[3] Except in isolated instances, their bearing towards each other is generally marked by suavity, and kindliness of manners which has a tendency to draw closer the bond of union between them all.

It is on such occasions that the amiable loveliness of human nature, is displayed,—brightening, for a time, at least the otherwise dark region of a Hindoo zenana and cheering the hearts of its inmates. In a thickly populated city like Calcutta, with its broad roads and dense crowds at all hours of the day, without a closed conveyance, either a palkee or a carriage, no married female is permitted to leave the house even for a single moment, for that of her sister, perhaps some three doors from her own. So great is the privacy, and punctiliousness with which female honor is guarded in the East. The sanction of the male or female head must, as a standing rule of female etiquette, be obtained before any one is at liberty to go out even to return a friendly or ceremonious visit. The reader may form an idea as to the tenacity with which the close zenana system in a respectable family is enforced, from the circumstance of a young Bahou or daughter-in-law (the rules being not so strict in the case of a daughter) being set down as immodest and unmannerly, if she were accidently seen to tread the outer or male compartment of the house. If she but chance to articulate a word or a phrase so as to reach the ear of a male outside, she is severely censured, and steps are instantly taken, to teach her better manners for the future. Even the Ghinni, or female Head, does not escape censure for a like offence. With such scrupulous pertinacity is the privacy of the inner life of the Hindoo society observed. A social line of demarcation is drawn around the zenana which a genteel Hindoo female is told and taught never to overstep, either in her conversation or bearing. Woe be to the day when she is incautiously led to move beyond her sphere, which, for all the practical purposes of life, is closely hemmed in by a ring of miserable seclusion, illustrating the scornful lines of the poet:

A few advanced Hindoos, more especially the Brahmos, who have received the benefits of an enlightened education, are making strenuous efforts to ameliorate the degraded condition of their wives and sisters (the mothers being too old and conservative to acquiesce in the spirit of modern innovation) and bring them to the front, if possible, by ignoring the rules of orthodoxy. But it is the firm belief of such as have been schooled by experience and observation, that the time is yet far distant when this bold, sweeping, social revolution shall be brought about with the general consensus of the people at large. The moral tone of Native society must be immensely raised, its manners and customs entirely remodelled, and its traditional institutions and prescriptive usages thoroughly purified before the consummation of so desirable an object can be successfully effected.

A Hindoo girl, even after marriage, enjoys greater liberty and is treated with more indulgence at her father's house than at her father-in-law's. The cause of this is obvious. From the very period of her birth, she is nurtured by her mother, aunts, sisters and other female relatives, no less than by her father, uncle, brothers and other male members of the family, all of whom naturally continue to bear her the same love and affection throughout her after life. A mother hugs her more tenderly, caresses her more fondly, hangs about her more affectionately, feels greater sympathy in her joy and sorrow, and watches more carefully how she grows up in health to her present state, than a mother-in-law. Whether she is eating, talking or playing, her mother's care never ceases. Should maternal admonition fail to produce the desired effect, as it does in a few isolated instances, the usual threat of sending her to her father-in-law's, acts as the most wholesome corrective.

The social relaxations of Hindoo females have a very limited range. Some delight in reading the MahÁbhÁrat, the RamayÁn, tales, romances, etc., while others are fond of needle-work, playing at cards, or listening to stories of a puerile description. Though they seldom come out of their houses, except under permissive sanction, yet their stock of gossip is almost inexhaustible. They are generally lively and loquacious, and the chief passion of their life is for the acquisition of ornaments. They possess a retentive memory, seldom forgetting what they once hear. Fond of hyperboles, the sober realities of life have little attraction for their minds. Their social tone is neither so pure nor so elevated as becomes a polished, refined community. It is almost needless to add, that their familiar conversation is not characterised by that chaste, dignified language, which constitutes the prominent feature of a people far advanced in the van of civilization. Objectionable modes of expression generally pass muster among them, simply because they labor under the great disadvantage of the national barrenness of intellect and the acknowledged poverty of colloquial literature.

It is a well-known fact that Hindoo males and females do not take their meals together. Both squat down on the floor at the time of eating. Except in the case of little girls, it is held highly unbecoming in a grown up female to be seen eating by a male member of the family. As a rule, women take their meals after the men have finished theirs. There is a popular belief that women take a longer time to eat than men. Of the perfection of the culinary art, the former are better judges than the latter. They chat and eat leisurely because they have no offices to go to, nor any definite occupation to engage their minds in. A Hindoo writer has said, that commonly speaking, they eat more and digest more readily than men. Naturally modest, they take their meals without any complaint, though sometimes they are served with food not of the very best description. The choicest part of the food is offered in the first instance to the males and the residue is kept for the females. A woman is religiously forbidden to taste of anything in the shape of eatables before it is given to a man. Simple in taste, diet and habits, but shut up in a state of close confinement, and leading a monotonous life, scarcely cheered by a ray of light, they are necessarily not receptive of large communications of truth.

The children form an important link in the great chain of the domestic circle. When sporting about in childhood they have commonly spare persons, light brown skins, high foreheads beaming with intelligence, large dark eyes, with aquiline noses, small thin-lipped mouths, and dark soft hair. The fairness of their complexion is generally sallowed by exposure to the sun in the earliest stage of childhood.

The child grows up under the fostering care of its parents amidst all the surroundings of the family domicile. As it advances in years the mother endeavours, according to her very limited capacity, to instil into its mind the rude elements of knowledge. From the incipient stage of early infancy when his mind is rendered susceptible of culture and expansion, crude and imperfect religious ideas largely leavened with superstition, are communicated to him, which subsequently mould his character in an undesirable manner. His early affections and moral principles are most entirely influenced by the impressions he receives at the maternal fount, and he seldom comes in contact with the outer world. He is taught to pay divine homage to all the idols that are worshipped at stated periods of the year, and his indistinct ideas grow into deep convictions, the pernicious influence of which can only afterwards be effaced by the blessings of western knowledge. In the villages "chÁnaka sloaka" or elementary lessons are still given as a sort of moral exercise. The mother from want of adequate capacity or culture is unfit to engraft on the youthful mind the higher divine truths, to teach the child how to look on men, how to feel for them, how to bear with them, how to be true, honest, manly, and how to "look beneath the outward to the spiritual, immortal and divine." Solid, practical wisdom, however, is often extracted from the most commonplace experiences, even by untutored minds.

"Honor thy father and thy mother," is the first scriptural commandment with promise, the importance and excellence of which is early impressed on the mind of a Hindoo child by wise, discreet parents. And Hindoos are honorably distinguished by their affections for their parents, and continue to be so even in the maturer years of their life.

In the case of a girl, even the most elementary sort of instruction is neglected except that she occasionally studies the Bengallee primer,—an innovation which the spirit of the times countenances. When of proper age, she is sent to a female school where she pursues her studies until finally withdrawn therefrom after her marriage. As a rational being she may continue to evince a natural desire and aptitude for intellectual progress and to carry it on by home study according to her taste and position in life. A few have made astonishing progress, despite certain formidable obstacles which an abnormal state of society inevitably interposes. The traditional bugbear of becoming a widow if she were to learn to read and write has happily passed away, not only in the great centres of education but likewise in several parts of the rural districts, where, to all appearances, females are just beginning, as it were, to assert their right to the improvement of their minds. This is certainly an unerring presage, foreshadowing the advent of national regeneration in the fullness of time. Many families being well-to-doin the world engage a Christian governess[4] both for elementary instruction as well as for needle-work, the latter being an accomplishment which even the most matronly ladies have now taken a great liking for. The introduction of this art of tasteful production has, in a great measure, superseded the idle, unprofitable gossip of the day, driving away ennui and slothfulness at the same time.

In almost every respectable Hindu household there is a tutelar god, chiefly made of stone and metal after one of the images of Krishna, set up on a gold or silver throne with silver umbrella and silver utensils dedicated to its service. Every morning and evening it is worshipped by the hereditary Purohit, or priest, who visits the house for the purpose twice a day, and who, as the name implies, is the first in all religious ceremonies, second to none but the guru or spiritual guide. The offerings of rice, fruits, sweetmeats and milk, made to the god, he carries home after the close of the service. A conch is blown, a bell is rung, and a gong beat at the time of the Poojah, when the religiously disposed portion of the inmates, male and female, in a quasi-penitent attitude, make their obeisance to the god and receive in return the hollow benediction of the priest. The daily repetition of the service quickens the heartbeats of the devotees and serves to remind them, however faintly, of their religious duties. Such a worship is popularly regarded in the light of an act of great merit paving the way to everlasting bliss. A suitable endowment in landed property is sometimes set apart for the permanent support of the idol, which is called the debatra land or inalienable property, according to the Hindu Shastras. Some families that have been reduced to a state of poverty through the reverses of fortune now live on the usufruct of the debatra land, which serves as a sheet-anchor in stormy weather.

Besides the daily Poojah of the household deity there are some other extraordinary religious celebrations, such as Doorga, Kali, Lakshmi, Jagaddhatri, Saraswati, Kartik, JanmÁshtami, Dole, RÁsh, Jhoolun, Jatras, etc., (the latter four being all Poojahs of Krishna) which excite the religious fervor of the Vaishnavas, as contra-distinguished from the Saktas, the followers of Kali or Doorga the female principle.

The internal daily details of a Hindu household next demand our attention. In the morning when the breakfast is ready the little children are served first as they have to go to their schools, and then the adult male members, chiefly brothers, nephews, etc., who have to attend their offices. They all squat down vis-a-vis on small bits of carpet on the floor, while the mother sits near them, not to eat but to see that they are all properly served; she closely watches that each and every one of them is duly satisfied; she would never feel happy should any of them find fault with a particular dish as being unsavoury, she snubs the cook and taxes herself for her own want of supervision in the kitchen, because the idea of having failed to do her duty in this respect is an agony to her mind.

As a mother, she avails herself of this opportunity to plunge into conversation, and consult her sons about the conduct of all domestic affairs, which necessarily expand as there are adjuncts to the original stock. For example, she takes their advice as to the amount of expenditure to be incurred at the forthcoming wedding of Sharat Shashee, the youngest daughter, in the month of Falgun, or February. This is an occasion, when the hearts of both the sons and the mother overflow with the milk of human kindness, yet there is a desire to avoid extravagance as far as possible.

A prudent mother wisely regulates her expenses according to the means and earnings of her sons, and she seldom or never comes to grief. The idea of an extravagant Hindoo mother is a solecism that has no existence in the actual realities of life. She is a model of economy, devotion, chastity, patience, self-denial, and a martyr to domestic affection. She may be wanting in mental accomplishment, which is not her own fault, but the very large share of strong common-sense she is naturally endowed with, sufficiently makes up for every deficiency in all the ordinary concerns of life. Accustomed to look upon her sons as the pride of her existence, she seeks every legitimate means to promote their happiness. If her daughters-in-law turn out querulous, and fall out one with another, which is not unfrequently the case, she reconciles them by the panacea of gentle remonstrance. But unhappily, such is the degeneracy of the present age that the influence of wholesome admonition being shamefully ignored is often lost in the cataclysm of discord, and the inevitable consequence is, that vicious selfishness disturbs Heaven's blessed peace, and "love cools, friendships fall off, brothers divide."

After the sons have gone to their respective offices, the mother changing her clothes retires into the thakurghar (the place of worship) and goes through her morning service, at the close of which she prostrates herself, invokes the blessing of her guardian deity, and then again changing her clothes, takes her breakfast and enjoys a short siesta, while chewing a mouthful of betel sometimes mixed with tobacco leaf, in order to strengthen her teeth.

In any sketch of a Hindu family it is necessary that something should be said about the domestic servants attached to a Hindu household. The cook, whose employment involves some very important considerations, may be either a male or a female. In most families, a preference is generally shewn for a female cook[5] for reasons which are obvious. The kitchen, being as a rule, placed in the inner division of the house, the females have an opportunity to assist her in various ways, so as to facilitate and expedite her work, which certainly is not always of the most pleasant nature. The dietary of a Hindu family, as may be easily anticipated, is of the simplest description, consisting for the most part of vegetables and fishes, with a little milk and ghee, but no eggs or meat of any kind. Not like the prepared dishes of the French and Moguls, highly flavored and richly spiced, the daily preparations are very simple; no onion, garlic, or strong aromatic spices are used. They are easy of digestion and palatable to taste, being altogether free from offensive and foetid smell. The simple turmeric, pepper, cummin, coriander and mustard seeds, etc., generally impart a fine flavor to the preparations, which the frugal and abstemious Hindoos eat with great zest. I have known the wives of several rich Baboos, take a delight in preparing with their own hands the evening meal of their husband and sons. This is entirely a labor of love, which they go through with the greatest cheerfulness. It is necessary to mention here that without fishes, which are very abundant, a nice little Hindoo breakfast or dinner in Bengal is an impossibility. The art of cooking should not be a mystery to all save the initiated few, it should be the study of every good and thrifty woman who is willing to sacrifice needless elegance and pomp to comfort and economy.

This gastronomical digression will serve to indicate the taste of the Hindu in Bengal, and the very simple style of their living. Even in the selection of articles of food a nice distinction is observed; fishes are dressed in a part of the kitchen quite distinct from where the vegetable dishes are prepared, because a widow is strictly forbidden to use anything which comes in contact with fishes. Moreover, a widow would not accept a dish unless it is prepared by a real Brahmin cook, male or female. Should a male member of the family be ever disposed to eat goat flesh (he being forbidden to use any other kind of meat, save mutton, when sacrificed) a Sakta cook undertakes to prepare it for him. When finished, she changes her clothes and purifies her body by sprinkling over it a few drops of Ganges water. Excepting little unmarried girls, whose parents are Saktas (worshippers of female deities) no other Hindu female is permitted to use meat even by sufferance. In other rigidly orthodox families a similar concession is withheld.

The wage of a female cook, who in nine cases out of ten is a widow, is about six to seven Rupees a month, with a few annas extra for Ekadashi—the day of close fast for all widows—and cocoanut oil for her hair,[6] six pieces of grey shirtings each ten cubits long, and three bathing napkins a year. She also gets an extra piece of cloth at the Doorga Poojah festival, when the most wretched pauper, somehow or other, puts on new clothes. Some of the widow cooks have certainly seen better days, but the vicissitudes of fortune have made them hopelessly destitute. As a rule, they bear the load of misfortune with the greatest patience. They chiefly come from the villages, and it speaks much in favor of the purity of their character that they ungrudgingly submit to the menial offices of a drudge, instead of being seduced into the forbidden paths of life. Of course there are a few black sheep in the flock, but happily their number is very limited. A male cook is always a Brahman. It is almost superfluous to add that the employment in a family or the admittance of any man-servant into the inner apartment of a Hindoo household, which is emphatically the great centre, as well of domestic happiness as of religious sanctity, is open to many objections.

The second domestic servant that demands a notice at our hands is the Jhee, or maid-servant of the family. Her duties are alike onerous and troublesome. Like the potter's wheel she incessantly turns backwards and forwards and knows no rest till about ten o'clock at night. She rises early in the morning, sweeps and washes all the rooms and verandahs inside the house, cleans all the brass utensils of the family, makes fire in the stove, pounds the kitchen spices, prepares fishes for cooking purposes, and attends to other duties of a household nature. Some maid-servants are almost exclusively employed in taking care of children. Their duties are not so hard as those of the family Jhee indicated above. These females are often drawn from the dregs of society and their conduct, or rather misconduct, sometimes leads to the most unhappy results. Their wage is about two Rupees a month, exclusive of food and clothes. They occasionally also make something by carrying presents to relatives and friends.

I next come to the male servants: there are more than a half-dozen of them in a respectable family, and their services are in the main confined to the outer apartment of the household. They sweep and clean all the rooms, spread white cloth bedding on the floor, change the water of the hookah (the first essential both at an ordinary and special reception) fill the chillum with tobacco, kochay, or trim the fine black bordered Simla Dhuti and Kalmay Urani (Baboo's native dressing attire) put in order the lamps, and go to Bazar to make purchases. Their pay ranges from three to four Rupees a month, exclusive of food and clothes.

A rich Hindoo, however, has a large establishment of servants in addition to those mentioned above. There are durwans (door-keepers); syces (grooms); coachmen, gardeners, sircar, cashier, accountant, etc., each of whom discharges his functions in his own sphere, but they seldom or never come in contact with the female inmates of the household. The cashier is the most important and responsible person, and his income is larger than that of any other servant, because he gets his commission from all tradespeople dealing with the family. All of them get presents of clothes at the great national festival the Doorga Pujah.

The khansamah of a Baboo is his most favorite servant. From the nature of his office he comes into closest contact with his master, he rubs his body with oil before bathing and sometimes shampooes him,—a practice which gradually induces idle, effeminate habits, and eventually greatly incapacitates a man for the manifold duties of an active life. Indeed, to study the life of a "big native swell" is to study the character of a consummate Oriental epicure, immersed in a ceaseless round of pleasures, and hedged in by a body of unconscionable fellows, distinguished only for their flattery and servility.

Except in isolated instances, the general treatment of domestic servants by their masters, is not reprehensible.

Except such as possess a thorough insight into the peculiar mysteries of the inner life of the Hindoo society, very few are aware that a wife—perhaps the mother of three or four children—is forbidden to open her lips or lift her veil in order to speak to her husband in presence of her mother-in-law, or any other adult male or female member of the family. She may converse with the children without fear of being exposed to the charge of impropriety; this is the systole and diastole of her liberty, but she is imperatively commanded to hold her tongue and drop down her veil whenever she happens to see an elderly member in her way. A phrase used in common parlance (Bhasur Bhadrabau) denotes the utmost privacy, as that which the wife of a younger brother should observe towards the elder brother of her husband. It is an unpardonable sin, as it were, in the former, even to come in contact with the very shadow of the latter. The rules of conventionalism have reared an adamantine partition wall between the two. We have all learnt in our school-days that modesty is a quality which highly adorns a woman, but the peculiar domestic economy of the natives, carries this golden rule to the utmost stretch of restriction, verging on sacred, religious prohibition.

The general state of Hindoo female society, as at present constituted, exhibits an improved moral tone, presenting an edifying contrast to the gross proclivities of former times as far as popular amusements are concerned. The popular amusements of the Hindoos, like those of many European nations, have rarely been characterised by essentially moral principles. But the loose and immoral amusements of the former time do not now so much interest our educated females. The popular Native Jatras (representations) do not now breathe those low, obscene expressions, which was the wont only some thirty years back, yet they are not, withal, absolutely pure or elevated. It is true that some of them are touching and pathetic in their themes, not jarring to a moral sense but admirably adapted to the taste of a people having a supreme respect for their idolatrous and mythological systems, from which most of these Jatras are derived. The marvellous and the supernatural always exact an instinctive regard from the ignorant and the credulous multitude, destitute of the superior blessings of enlightenment. The Panchaly (represented by female actresses only) which is given for the amusement of the females, especially at the time of the second marriage, is sometimes much too obscene and immoral to be tolerated in a zenana having any pretension to gentility. On such an occasion, despite a strict conventional restriction, a depraved taste clearly manifests itself. Much has yet to be done to develope among the females a taste for purer amusements, and such as are better adapted to a healthy state of society.

In Hindoo females there is a prominent trait which deserves to be commended. Moses, Mohammed, and Manu, observes Benjamin Disraeli, say cleanliness is religion. Cleanliness certainly promotes health of body and delicacy of mind. When that excellent prelate, Heber, travelled in a boat on the sacred stream of the Ganges, seeing large crowds of Hindoo females engaged in washing their bodies and clothes on both sides of the river, at the rising and setting of the sun, he most emphatically remarked that cleanliness is the supreme virtue of Hindoo women. In the Upper Provinces, at all seasons of the year, hundreds of women could be daily seen with baskets of flowers in their hands slowly walking in the direction of the river, and chanting songs in a chorus in praise of the "unapproachable sanctuary of Mahadev, the great glacier world of the HimÀlayÀ, with its wondrous pinnacles, rising 24,000 feet above the level of the sea, and descending into the amethyst-hued ice cavern, whence issues, in its turbulent and noisy infancy, the sacred river of India." They display a purity, a sincerity, a constant and passionate devotion to their faith, which present a striking contrast to the conduct of men steeped in the quagmire of profligacy.

Our ladies bathe their bodies and change their clothes twice in a day, in the morning and in the afternoon, neglecting which they are not permitted to take in hand any domestic work.

In the large Hindoo households, the lot of the wife who is childless is truly deplorable. While her sisters are rejoicing in the juvenile fun and frolics of their respective children, sporting with all the elasticity of a light, free, and buoyant heart, she sits sulkily aloof, and inwardly repines at the unkind ordinance of BidhÁtÁ and earnestly invokes Ma Shasthi (the patron deity of all children) to grant her the inestimable boon of offspring, without which this butterfly life is unsanctified, unprofitable and hollow.

The barrenness of a Hindoo female is denounced as a sin, for the atonement of which certain religious rites are performed, and incessant prayers offered to all the terrestrial and celestial gods; but all her superstitious practices proving in vain, only tend to intensify her misery.

In the beginning of this sketch I set out by stating that the peculiar constitution of Hindoo society bears an affinity to the old patriarchal system. This is true to a very great extent. The system has its advantages and disadvantages, which are, in a great measure, inseparable from the outgrowth of the social organism. If properly weighed in the scale, the latter will most assuredly counterbalance the former, so much so, that in the great majority of cases, discord and disquietude is the inevitable result of joint fraternisation. Leadership is certainly organisation; it formed the nucleus of the patriarchal system. But it is simply absurd to expect that there should always be a happy marriage of minds in all cases, between so many men and women living together, endowed with different degrees of culture and influenced by adverse interests and sentiments. In the nature of things, it is impossible that all the members of a large family, having separate and specific objects of their own, should coalesce and cordially co-operate to promote the general welfare of a family, under a common leader or head. The millennium is not yet come. Seven brothers living together with their wives and children under one and the same paternal roof, cannot reasonably be expected to abide in a state of perfect harmony so long as selfishness and incongruous tastes and interests are continually at work to sap the very foundation of friendliness and good fellowship. Union is strength, but harmonious union under the peculiar regime indicated above, is already a remarkable exception in the present state of Hindoo society. If minutely probed, it will be found that women are at the bottom of that mischievous discord, which eats into the very vitals of domestic felicity. Segregation, therefore, is the only means that promises to afford a relief from this social incubus; and to segregation many families have now resorted, much after the fashion of the dominant race, with a view to the uninterrupted enjoyment of domestic happiness.

Having briefly indicated in the preceding lines the chief family constituents of a Hindoo household in their several relations and characteristics, it is scarcely necessary for me to add, that whenever this interesting group, consisting of sweet children, loving husbands and wives, and affectionate parents and brothers, is animated by the vital, indestructible principles of virtue, practically recognising the obligations of duty, the divinity of conscience, and the moral connection of the present and future life, it will be found to diffuse all the blessings of peace, joy and moral order around the social and domestic hearth.