On the annual commemoration of this popular festival in Bengal, which is analogous to the English "Harvest home," the people in general, and the agricultural classes in particular, manifest a gleeful appearance, indicative of national demonstrations of joy and mirth. It takes place in the Bengalee month of Pous or January, following immediately in the wake of the English Christmas and New year's day. With the exception of the upper ten thousand, almost all men, women and children alike participate in the festivities of the season, and for three succeeding days are occupied in rural pastimes and gastronomical enjoyment. The popular cry on this occasion, is—"Awoynee, Bownee, teen deen, pittaey, bhat, khawnee," "the Pous or Makar Sankranti is come, let three days be passed in eating cakes and rice," accompanied by a supplementary invocation to the goddess of Prosperity (Lukshmee) that she may afford her votaries ample stores so that they may never know want. As the outward manifestation of this internal wish, they tie all their chests, boxes, beddings, the earthen cooking pots in the kitchen, as well as those in the store-house containing their food grains, and in fact every movable article in the house, with shreds of straw that they may always remain intact. The origin of this festival is involved in obscurity, but tradition says that it sprung from the general desire of the people engaged in agricultural pursuits to celebrate the last day of Pous, and two succeeding days, in eating what they most relish, cakes of all sorts, to their hearts' content, after having harvested and gathered their corn and other food grains, which form the main staff of their life. Whatever may have been the origin of this festival, it is evident that it does not owe its existence, like most other Hindoo festivals, to priestcraft. The idea is good and the tendency excellent. After harvesting and gathering the fruits of their labour, on which depend not only their individual subsistence throughout the year, but the general prosperity of the country by the development of its resources, the husbandmen are well entitled to lay aside, for a short while, the ploughshare, and taking three days' rest, spend them in rural amusements and festivities amid their domestic circle. All this tends, in no small degree, to awaken and revive dormant feelings of love and friendliness by mutual exchange of invitations as well as of good fellowship. Their incessant toil in the field during the seven previous months, their intense anxiety on the score of weather, carefully noting, though not with the scientific precision of the meteorological reporter, deficient and plenteous rainfall, and apprehending the destructive October gale, when the ears of corn are almost fully developed, their constant watchfulness for the prevention of theft and the destruction of the crops by cattle, their unceasing weeding out of troublesome and useless plants and cassay grass, sometimes wading in marshy swamp or mire knee deep, and their incessant anxiety for the due payment of rent to the zemindar, or perhaps of interest to the relentless money lender, are sources of uneasiness that do not allow them a moment's peace of mind. Should they, by way of relaxation, cease to work for three days in the year, they are not to be blamed for laziness or supineness. The question of a good harvest is of such immense importance to an agricultural country like India, that when the god, Ram Chunder, the model king, visited his subjects in Oude, the first thing he asked them was about the state of the crops, and when the enquiry was favorably answered, his mind was set at rest, and he cheerfully unfolded to them the scheme of his future Government.[83] Physically and practically considered, temporary cessation from labor is indispensable to recruit the energy of the exhausted frame of body, and promote the normal vigor of mind. So in whatever light this national jubilee is regarded, socially, morally or scientifically, it is productive of beneficial results, ultimately contributing to the augmentation of the material prosperity of the land.

Some of my countrymen of a fastidious taste look upon this festival as a puerile and foolish entertainment, because it possesses no dignified feature to commend it to their attention, but they should consider that it is free from the idolatrous abominations and rank obscenity by which most of the Hindoo festivals are characterised, independently of its having a tendency to promote the innocent mirth and general hilarity of the masses, whose contentment is the best test of a good government and of a generous landed aristocracy.

So popular is this festival amongst the people that the Mussulmans have a common saying to the effect, that their Eed, Bakrid and Shub-i-Barat—three of their greatest national festivals—are no match for the Hindoo Pous Sakrad.

Our children and women in the city, whose minds are so largely tinctured with an instinctive regard for all festivities, share in the general excitement. On this occasion, exchanges of presents of sweetmeats, cloths, jaggery, ghee, flour, oranges, cereals, cocoanuts, balls of concentrated milk, vegetables, spices, sugar, almonds, raisins, etc, are made between relatives in order that they may be enabled to solemnise the cake festival with the greatest Éclat. In respectable families, the women cheerfully take the trouble of making these preparations, instead of trusting them to their female cooks, because male cooks are no adepts in the art. So nicely are these cakes made and in such variety, that the late Mr. Cockerell, a highly respected merchant of this City, used every year to get an assortment from his Baboo and invite his friends to partake of them; and notwithstanding the proverbial differences of taste, there are few who would not relish them.

The boys in the many pÁtshÁlÁs or primary schools around Calcutta, annually keep up this festival in a splendid style. The more advanced form themselves into a band of songsters, and, attended by bands of musicians with all the usual accompaniments of flags, staves, etc., proceed in procession from their respective schools to the bank of the river Bhagiruttee, singing rhythmically in a chorus all the way in praise of the holy stream, and of her powers of salvation in the present Kali Yuga, or iron age. When they reach their destination they pour forth their songs most vociferously. They afterwards perform the usual ablutions and return home in the same manner as they set out from the PÁtshÁlÁ, regarding the performance as an act of great merit.