accomplishments, and are devoted to the temples of the gods. In his
begging excursions the Byrâgee carries a pair of cymbals or a small
gong; and singing the songs of Krishna, and his courtships among the
milkmaids, he delights the hearts of his Hindoo hearers, and makes
them lavish of their gifts.

The English reader perhaps has never heard of a beggar such as I
shall now depict. One may happen to be in a reflective mood, and
aroused from his meditations by what he supposes to be a cow lowing
close to his ear. He starts up and goes to the window, but instead
of that quadruped he finds a man standing with a rope round his
neck, and a woful countenance, holding out his palms, indicating
that he wants charity. This man has had the misfortune to lose his
cow; and as it died tethered, his religion imposes on him the
penalty of begging from door to door without speaking, but imitating
the cow, till he has realised enough to purchase one of these sacred
animals, and to give something besides in charity to the Brahmins.
This provision was perhaps made by the religion of the country in
favour of the cow, to preserve so useful an animal from
ill-treatment; and it is astonishing to see how implicitly the
Hindoo submits himself to a mere convention, which he might easily
evade.




A LATE PRISON REPORT.


In the Sixteenth Report on the state of the Prisons, by Mr Frederic