ra_, strictly speaking, is a Mahomedan festival. Some of
the lower orders of the Hindus of the NW Provinces, who have
borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, celebrate
the _Beara_. But it is not observed by the Hindus of Bengal, who
have a festival of their own, similar to the _Beara_. It takes
place on the evening of the _Saraswati Poojah_, when a small
piece of the bark of the Plantain Tree is fitted out with all
the necessary accompaniments of a boat, and is launched in a
private tank with a lamp. The custom is confined to the women
who follow it in their own house or in the same neighbourhood.
It is called the _Sooa Dooa Breta_.

Yours truly,

* * * * *

Mrs. Carshore it would seem is partly right and partly wrong. She is
right in calling the _Beara_ a _Moslem_ Festival. It is so; but we have
the testimony of Horace Hayman Wilson to the fact that _Hindu maids and
matrons also launch their lamps upon the river_. My Hindu friend
acknowledges that his countrymen in the North West Provinces have
borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, and though he is not
aware of it, it may yet be the case, that some of the Hindus of
_Bengal_, as elsewhere, have done the same, and that they set lamps
afloat upon the stream to discover by their continued burning or sudden
extinction the fate of some absent friend or lover. I find very few
Natives who are able to give me any exact and positive information
concerning their own national customs. In their explanations of such
matters they differ in the most extraordinary manner amongst themselves.
Two most respectable and intelligent Native gentlemen who were proposing
to lay out their grounds under my directions, told me that I must
not cut down a single cocoa-nut tree, as it would be dreadful
sacrilege--equal to cutting the throats of seven brahmins! Another equally
respectable and intelligent Native friend, when I mentioned the fact,
threw himself back in his chair to give vent to a hearty laugh. When he
had recovered himself a little from this risible convulsion he observed
that his father and his grandfather had cut down cocoa-nut trees in
considerable numbers without the slightest remorse or fear. And yet
again, I afterwards heard that one of the richest Hindu families in
Calcutta, rather than suffer so sacred an object to be injured, piously
submit to a very serious inconvenience occ