constant companions and friends of the deities, but often as being themselves of divine intelligence, dwelling in Paradise, and occasionally incarnated on earth, to assist the god to whose service they were devoted. Garuda, prince of the eagles, is supposed to guard the entrance of Vishnu's Paradise. Hanuman, prince of the monkeys, assumed the form of an ape, and rendered important services to Vishnu while on earth in the person of Rama. There are numerous other similar instances. In the Ramayana it is stated that Garuda, having sinned in thought against his divine master, went in penitent guise to seek counsel from the crow Bhusanda, who dwelt on the lofty summits of the Blue Mountains, and had been devoted to the service of Rama from his birth. This crow was แ experienced in virtues and vices; well acquainted with all that had happened since the beginning of time; sometimes wrapped in profound meditation on the being of God; at others pouring forth invocations, and proclaiming the praises of Vishnu to the birds of land and water." He became the instructor of Garuda, and informed him that he had once been a Bramin, but had passed into a crow, in consequence of maledictions pronounced upon him by a powerful saint. With these ideas, no wonder the brute creation are regarded with tenderness and reverence. Bulls and cows are sacred in the highest degree, especially the latter, on account of a cow in Paradise, styled, "Mother of the gods, and of three worlds." Even the dung of this animal is sacred, and is used in many religious ceremonies. Hindoos will die rather than taste of beef; a fact which has been often proved on board vessels where all the provisions were expended except salt beef. The punishment for selling a bullock to a European is to be impaled alive. Monkeys are sacred, on account of Hanuman, famous in the exploits of Rama. Rajahs and nobles often expend large sums to celebrate a festival in honour of those animals. A monkey, or an ape, on such occasions, is seated in a splendid palanquin, and followed by musicians, singers, and dancing girls, amid a gorgeous shower of

fire-works. Two British officers, who shot a monkey during one of their hunting excursions, were driven by a mob of devotees into the river Jumna, where they perished. In Jafanapatan, an ape's tooth, believed to be Hanuman's, was preserved for centuries as a relic in the temple, and many pilgrimages were made to see it. After the Portuguese conquered that part of the country, the Hindoos sent an embassy to them offering three hundred thousand ducats for the recovery of this treasure. But, by advice of the Catholic Bishop, the tooth was burned in presence of the ambassadors, and its ashes thrown into the sea. A cunning man afterward persuaded them to buy another tooth, representing that an invisible power had substituted a false tooth to be burned by unbelievers, and miraculously saved the true one. The Crocodile is another of their sacred animals. Hindoo mothers are remarkable for passionate love of offspring, yet they often throw their infants into the jaws of these monsters, believing they thus propitiate the deities and secure the child's salvation. The hooded serpent Cobra do Capello is sacred, on account of its association with Vishnu. Some other species of serpents are regarded by them as peculiarly the protecting Spirits of gardens and vineyards, and therefore they will not consent to destroy them. Indeed all animals have a degree of sacredness to a devout Hindoo, arising from the belief that each one is a manifested portion of God. Voracious and unclean creatures they believe to be the residence of malignant Spirits and bad souls. Those that subsist on vegetables are supposed to be favoured by divine beings. They peculiarly venerate ants and bees, conceiving the Spirits which animate them to be gifted with superior intelligence. They believe every animal is endowed with thought and memory, and has some comprehensive mode of communicating ideas to its own species.

At Surat is a Banian hospital, enclosed with high walls and divided into courts, where diseased and aged animals are watched with tenderest care. When an animal breaks his limb, or is otherwise disabled, his master carries him

to the hospital, where he is received without reference to the caste or nation of his owner. If he recovers, he cannot be reclaimed, but remains to draw water for other creatures not able to work. When Sir James Forbes visited this place, it was full of horses, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, birds, and an aged tortoise, known to have been there seventy-five years. One ward was appropriated to rats, mice, and vermin. The overseers frequently hired beggars for a stipulated sum to pass a night among fleas and bugs, on condition of allowing them a feast without molestation.

Pious pilgrims are often met on the road carrying a soft broom to sweep the ground, lest they should tread on insects, and with nostrils covered to avoid inhaling them. A learned Bramin, much interested in science, took great delight in exploring the library of an English resident, who one day showed him a solar microscope, to convince him that the precautions of devotees were useless, inasmuch as every draught of water was filled with animalculæ. The Bramin became very thoughtful, and offered large sums for the instrument. Being difficult to obtain in India, the owner for some time refused; but at last, overcome by repeated importunities, he gave it to him. He instantly seized a large stone and dashed the microscope into a thousand atoms. In answer to the angry expostulations of his foreign friend, he said: "O that I had remained in the happy state of ignorance wherein you found me! As my knowledge increased so did my pleasure, until I beheld. the wonders of that instrument. From that moment I have been tormented with doubt and perplexed by mystery. I am now a solitary individual among millions of people all educated in the same belief with myself; all happy in their ignorance. So may they ever remain! I shall keep the secret in my own bosom, where it will corrode my peace and disturb my rest. Forgive me, my valuable friend; and, O, bring here no more implements of knowledge and destruction."

Many causes have been at work to produce a gradual

degeneracy in the manners, customs, and opinions of the Hindoos. Knowledge of the Vedas is confined to the learned, and few ever heard of such a doctrine as the unity of God. The great mass of the people are neglected by the Bramins, who are either taken up with the acquisition of temporal power, or striving to obtain spiritual elevation for themselves, by contemplation and penances. Such instruction as the populace do receive, rather serves to confuse their moral perceptions. Thefts, perjury, or murder, may be atoned for by presents to the priests, and the performance of prescribed ceremonies, without further inconvenience to the culprit; while killing a cow, selling beef to a European, offending a Bramin, or being converted to a foreign religion, involves either the penalty of death, or total excommunication from society by loss of caste. Everywhere the limitations of caste come in to narrow the sympathies and impede the progress of intellect. Hindoos are by nature remarkably kind, gentle, and charitable; but their tender-heartedness disappears the moment it comes in collision with the laws of caste. If a Bramin sees a Pariah drowning, he must not even extend a long pole to save him; for by so doing he would incur pollution involving loss of caste. A Christian missionary ventured to employ a converted Pariah to teach other Hindoo converts; but they protested strongly against such an innovation. "How is it possible," said they, "to allow a Pariah to come into our houses to pray?" Four hundred persons left the congregation in consequence, but twenty remained to hear the Christian Scriptures read by a man who was socially their inferior; and those twenty were more valuable than the four hundred would have been, with the Pariah silenced.

Hindoo worship makes no provision for the instruction of the people in religious ideas or moral duties. It consists of a routine of ceremonies. Every image is regularly served with rice, fruit, and flowers, which after a prescribed time are removed for the use of priests and their attendants. Perfumes and incense are considered among the most acceptable offerings. Large quantities of frankincense were

carried from Arabia to Hindostan at a period so remote that the use of it is mentioned in the ancient poem, Ramayana. Among consecrated plants, the Soma, or Moon Plant, is peculiarly sacred. The juice is a holy drink which Bramins taste on certain religious occasions, after having offered prescribed prayers. They say it is not necessary to understand the prayers which they mechanically repeat from the Vedas. It is sufficient to know what deity is addressed, and what event is the occasion for supplication or thanksgiving. In many cases, mysterious virtue is ascribed to reciting the form of words alternately backward and forward.

Religious models for the people are of a lower character than they were in the ancient times. There are now few devotees who attempt to copy the austere virtue of old hermits; but popular reverence for such characters has produced a swarm of mendicants, who imitate only their extravagancies. These are often described by travellers under the name of Fakeers, or Yogees. On their forehead and arms they usually wear the perpendicular line emblematic of Sivaites, or the horizontal line of Vishnuites. It is marked by the priests with a composition made of burnt sandal-wood, tumeric, and cow-dung. Doubtless many of these devotees sincerely believe that they expiate their own sins and those of others, by their severe sufferings. Some dig a grave and remain buried in the earth, leaving only a small aperture for the admission of food. An English gentleman in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, perceiving a strange-looking creature in a hole of the ground, beat it till the blood flowed, without causing any movement, or any remonstrance. It was a Fakeer who had vowed himself to that mode of torture. Some stand in one constrained posture for years and years. Others crawl on their hands and knees round an extensive empire. Some roll their bodies over the ground from Indus to Ganges, collecting money to dig a well, or build a temple, in atonement for some sin. Many of them go entirely naked, and come to look like wild beasts, with nails of