The Left Hand Is Not Used During The Whole Meal Time.

This mode of eating appears, indeed, very uninviting; but it is, in fact, not at all so; the hand is washed, and does not touch anything but the food.

It is the same in drinking; the vessel is not put to the lips, but the liquid is very cleverly poured into the open mouth. Before the children have acquired this dexterity in eating and drinking, they are not permitted, even when they wear the girdle, to come to the table of the adults.

The most common drink in Bombay is called sud or toddy, a kind of light spirituous beverage which is made from the cocoa and date- palm. The taxes upon these trees are very high; the latter are, as in Egypt, numbered and separately assessed. A tree which is only cultivated for fruit, pays from a quarter to half a rupee (6d. to 1s.); those from which toddy is extracted, from three-quarters to one rupee each. The people here do not climb the palm-trees by means of rope-ladders, but they cut notches in the tree, in which they set their feet.

During my stay here, an old Hindoo woman died near to Herr Wattenbach's house, which circumstance gave me an opportunity of witnessing an Indian funeral. As soon as she began to show signs of death, the women about her every now and then set up a horrible howling, which they continued at short intervals after her decease. Presently, small processions of six or eight women approached, who also commenced howling as soon as they discovered the house of the mourners.

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Words from 125886 to 126162 of 187810