beautiful specimens; but then the poorer people of India
are exceedingly industrious; they live very simply, eating rice,
boiled with milk and spices, as their principal food, for it is
against their religion to touch meat of any kind. They would lead
rather a sorry life, were it not that their tastes were so extremely
simple, and their wants so few. A Hindoo village looks more like a
gipsy encampment, than anything else, and bears a very strange
appearance to a European, at first.

[Illustration]

However, although the poor people live in this way, the princes and
nobles lead a far different life; an eastern grandee could formerly do
anything he chose, even to killing of his wives and slaves, and, only
I do not wish to frighten you, I could tell you many stories about the
cruelty of the Indian nobles. They live in great state, and are
always surrounded by a throng of slaves, and attendants, who wait on
them as they recline lazily on a pile of the softest cushions, which
are covered with the skins of beasts, and with silks, velvets, and
satins. When they go abroad they are carried in what is called a
palanquin, borne on the shoulders of servants, if they do not choose
to ride on a horse or an elephant.

[Illustration]

Their houses are adorned with the utmost magnificence, while the
gardens or approaches to them are delightfully cool and refreshing,
being shaded by fragrant trees, and shrubs, perfumed by the most
beautiful flowers, and cooled by fountains, playing in marble basins.
The Indian machinery is very clumsy indeed, and the mills are the
funniest-looking things imaginable: I must show you an oil-mill.

[Illustration]

A very cruel custom prevails in many parts of India, which I know will
shock you very much: when a Hindoo of rank dies, his widow is laid by
his side on a pile of faggots, which being set fire to, the poor
creature is suffocated, or else burnt alive, and they pretend that she
likes to be so destroyed. The ceremony is called a "Suttee," and is
conducted with great pomp, all the relations of the woman and her dead
husband being present, in addition to an immense crowd; before getting
on the pile, the widow divides all her jewels and ornaments amongst
her friends. Here is a picture of a widow about to bathe in a
"consecrated" river, before going to be burnt.

Here are lovely specimens of the manufacture of gold, silver, silk,
jewellery, and Lebanon horns, from Syria, with seeds, fruits, oils