urriers, tanners, and workers in leather and skins generally,
frequently combine together in places, and wilfully poison cattle and
buffaloes. There is actually a section in the penal code taking
cognisance of the crime. The Hindoo will not touch a dead carcase, so
that when a bullock mysteriously sickens and dies, the _Chumars_ haul
away the body, and appropriate the skin. Some luckless witch is blamed
for the misfortune, when the rascally Chumars themselves are all the
while the real culprits. The police, however, are pretty successful in
detecting this crime, and it is not now of such frequent occurrence
[3].

Highly as the pious Hindoo venerates the sacred bull of Shira, his
treatment of his mild patient beasts of burden is a foul blot on his
character. Were you to shoot a cow, or were a Mussulman to wound a
stray bullock which might have trespassed, and be trampling down his
opium or his tobacco crop, and ruining his fields, the Hindoos would
rise _en masse_ to revenge the insult offered to their religion. Yet
they scruple not to goad their bullocks, beat them, half starve them,
and let their gaping wounds fester and become corrupt. When the poor
brute becomes old and unable to work, and his worn-out teeth unfit to
graze, he is ruthlessly turned out to die in a ditch, and be torn to
pieces by jackals, kites, and vultures. The higher classes and
well-to-do farmers show much consideration for high-priced
well-conditioned animals, but when they get old or unwell, and demand
redoubled care and attention, they are too often neglected, till, from
sheer want of ordinary care, they rot and die.

[1] The _bael_ or wood-apple is a sacred wood with Hindoos. It is
enjoined in the Shastras that the bodies of the dead should be
consumed in a fire fed by logs of bael-tree; but where it is not
procurable in sufficient quantity, the natives compound with their
consciences by lighting the funeral pyre with a branch from the
bael-tree. It is a fine yellow-coloured, pretty durable wood, and
makes excellent furniture. A very fine sherbet can be made from
the fruit, which acts as an excellent corrective and stomachic.

[2] Deaths from actual snake bite are sadly numerous; but it appears
from returns furnished to the Indian Government that Europeans
enjoy a very happy exemption. During the last forty years it would
seem that only two Europeans have been killed by snake bite, at
least only