If It Had Come To Blows, We Should, No Doubt, In Spite Of My Aid, Have Come Off The Worst; But They Contented Themselves With Mutual Abuse And Threats, And The Fellows Got Out Of The Way.

I have everywhere remarked that the Indians jangle and threaten a great deal, but that they never go beyond that.

I have lived a great deal among the people and observed them, and have often seen anger and quarrelling, but never fighting. Indeed, when their anger lasts long, they sit down together. The children never wrestle or pull each other about, either in sport or earnest. I only once saw two boys engaged in earnest quarrel, when one of them so far forgot himself as to give the other a box on the ear, but he did this as carefully as if he received the blow himself. The boy who was struck drew his sleeve over his cheek, and the quarrel was ended. Some other children had looked on from the distance, but took no part in it.

This good nature may partly depend upon the fact that the people eat so little flesh, and, according to their religion, are so extremely kind to all animals; but I think still that there is some cowardice at the bottom of it. I was told that a Hindoo could scarcely be persuaded to enter a dark room without a light; if a horse or ox makes the slightest start, both great and small run frightened and shrieking away. On the other side, again, I heard from the English officers that the sepoys were very brave soldiers. Does this courage come with the coat, or from the example of the English?

During the last day I saw a great many poppy plantations. They present a remarkable appearance; the leaves are fatty and shining, the flowers large and variegated. The extraction of the opium is performed in a very simple, but exceedingly tedious manner. The yet unripe poppy heads are cut in several places in the evening. A white tenacious juice flows out of these incisions, which quickly thickens by exposure to the air, and remains hanging in small tears. These tears are scraped off with a knife in the morning, and poured into vessels which have the form of a small cake. A second inferior quantity is obtained by pressing and boiling the poppy heads and stems.

In many books, and, for instance, in Zimmerman's "Pocket-Book of Travels," I read under this head that the poppy plants reached a height of forty feet in India and Persia, and that the capsules were as large as a child's head, and held nearly a quart of seeds. This is not correct. I saw the finest plantations in India, and afterwards also in Persia, but found that the plants were never more than three, and, at the most, four feet high, and the capsule about as large round as a small hen's egg.

8th February. Madopoor, a wretched village at the foot of some low mountains.

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