CHAPTER II.

THE COLOR AND ORNAMENTS OF THE HINDOOS.


My dear children--If you will take a piece of mahogany in your hands,
and view its different shades, you will have a pretty good
representation of the color of a large class of this heathen people--I
say, of a large class, for there is a great variety of colors. Some
appear to be almost of a bronze color. Some are quite black. It is
difficult to account for the different colors which we often see in the
same family. For instance, one child will be of the reddish hue to which
I just referred; another will be quite dark. When I was in Ceylon, two
sisters of this description joined my church. One was called Sevappe, or
the red one; the other was called Karappe, or the black one.

This people very much resemble the English and Americans in their
features. Many of them are very beautiful. This remark will apply
particularly to children, and more especially to the children of
Brahmins and others, who are delicately brought up. But however
beautiful any of this people may be, they try to make themselves appear
more so, by the ornaments which they wear. These ornaments are of very
different kinds, and are made of gold, silver, brass, precious stones,
or glass. All are fond of ear-rings. Sometimes four or five are worn in
each ear, consisting of solid gold, the lower one being the largest, and
the upper one the smallest. Some men wear a gold ornament attached to
the middle of the ear, in which a precious stone is inserted. Sometimes
they wear very large circular ear-rings, made of the wire of copper,
around which gold is twisted so as to cover every part of it. These are
frequently ornamented with precious stones. The females, in addition to