in the memory, it is highly unbecoming and ungenerous to open or enter into a matrimonial negotiation, and have it consummated immediately after the asúchi or mourning is over. A wife is certainly not a beast of burden that is no sooner removed by death than it may be replaced by another. She is a being whose joy and sorrow, happiness and misery, should be identical with her husband's, and he is a savage in the widest sense of the word who does not cherish a sacred regard for her memory after her death. In regard to the whole conduct and relations of the married life, Hindoos cannot have the golden rule too strongly impressed: 'Let every one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself; and let the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

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VI.

THE BROTHER FESTIVAL.

NY social institution that has a tendency to promote the growth of genuine love and affection between man and woman, is naturally conducive to the happiness of both. In this sublunary vale of tears, where unalloyed felicity is but transient and short lived, even a temporary exemption from the cares and anxieties of the world adds at least some moments of pleasure to life. The Bhratridvitiya, or fraternal rite of the Hindoos, is an institution of this nature, being admirably calculated to cement the natural bond of union between brothers and sisters of the same family. Bhratridvitiya, as the name imports, takes place on the second day of the new moon immediately following the Kali Poojah or Dewali. On the morning of this day, a brother comes to the house of a sister, and receives from her hand the usual benedictive present of unhusked rice, doova-grass and sandal, with a wealth of good wishes for his long, prosperous life, and the happy commemoration of the event from year to year. The brother in return reciprocates, and putting a Rupee or two into her hands, expresses a similar good wish, with the addition that she may long continue to enjoy the blessings of a conjugal life, a benediction which she values over every other worldly advantage. The main object of this festival is to renovate and intensify the warmth of affection between kith and kin of both sexes by blessing each other on a particular day of the year. It is a sort of family reunion, pre-eminently calculated to recall the early reminiscences of life, and to freshen up fraternal and sisterly love. No ritualistic rite or priestly interposition is necessary for the purpose, it being a purely social institution, originating in the love that sweetens life.

After interchanging salutations, the sister who has every thing ready thrice invokes a blessing upon the brother in a Bengali verse, and marks his forehead thrice with sandal paste by the tip of her little finger. She then serves him with the provisions provided for the festive occasion. Here genuine love and true affection almost spontaneously gush forth from the heart of the sister towards one who is united to her by the nearest tie of consanguinity and tenderest remembrances. If the brother be not inclined to relish or taste a particular dish, how affectionately does she cajole him to try it, adding at the same time that it has been prepared by her own hand with the greatest care. Any little dislike evinced by the brother instantly bathes her eyes in tears, and disposes her to exclaim somewhat in the following strain: “Why is this slight towards a poor sister who has been up till twelve o'clock last night to prepare for you the chunderpooley and Khirarchách (two sorts of home-made sweetmeats) regardless of the cries of Khoká (the baby). Such a pathetic, tender expression bursting from the lips of a loving sister cannot fail to melt a brother's heart, and overcome his dislike. About four o'clock in the afternoon, the sister sends, as tangible memorials of her affection, presents of clothes and sweetmeats to the house of the brother, fondly indulging in the hope that they may be acceptable to him. On this particular day, Hindoo homes as well as the streets of Calcutta in the native part of the town, present the lively appearance of a national jubilee. Each of the brothers of the family visits each of the sisters in turn. Hundreds of male and female servants are busily engaged in carrying presents, and return home quite delighted. On such occasions the heart of a Hindoo female, naturally soft and tender, becomes doubly expansive when the outflow of love and affection on her part is fully reciprocated by the effusion of good wishes on the part of her brother.

VII.

THE SON-IN-LAW FESTIVAL.

F not precisely analogous in all its prominent features to the popular festival described in the preceding

Chapter, the following bears a striking resemblance to it, in its adaptation to promote domestic happiness. The festival familiarly known in Bengal by the name of "Jamai Shasthi" is an entertainment given in honor of a sonin-law, in order to bind him more closely to his wife's family.

Nothing better illustrates the manners and usages of a nation from a social and religious standpoint than the festivals and ceremonies which are observed by it. They form the essential parts of what DeQuincey calls the equipage of life. As a nation, the Hindoos are proverbially fond of festivals, which are engrafted, as it were, on their peculiar domestic and social economy. A designing priesthood had concocted an almost endless round of superstitious rites with the view of acquiring power, and looking for permanent reverence to the credulity of the blind devotees. Such foolish rites are eventually destined to fall into desuetude, as popular enlightenment progresses, but those which are free from the taint of priestcraft by reason of their being interwoven into the social amenities of life, are likely to prevail long after the subversion of priestly ascendency. And Jamai Shasthi is a festival of this unobjectionable type. No superstitious element enters into its observance.

It invariably takes place on the sixth day* of the increase

* It appears to me rather anomalous, as far as Hindoo astrology is concerned, that such a national jubilee is fixed to be celebrated on this particular day, which is specially marked as an unlucky day for any good work. The Hindoo almanac places Shasthi, the sixth day of the moon, as dugdhá or destructive of any good thing in popular estimation. A Hindoo is religiously forbidden to commence any important work or set out on a journey on this day. It portends evil.

of the moon in the Bengali month of May, when ripe mangoes -the prince of Indian fruits-are in full season. Then all the mothers-in-law in Bengal are actually on the qui vive to welcome their sons-in-law and turn a new leaf in the chapter of their joys. A good son-in-law is emphatically the most darling object of a Hindoo mother-in-law. She spares no possible pains to please and satisfy him, even calling to her aid the supernatural agency of charms. Ostensibly and even practically a Hindoo mother-in-law loves her son-in-law more than her son, simply because the son can shift for himself even if turned adrift in the wide world, but the daughter is absolutely helpless, and the cruel institution of perpetual widowhood, with its appalling amount of misery and risk, renders her tenfold more so.

On this festive occasion, the son-in-law is invited to spend the day and night at his father-in-law's house. No pains or expense is spared to entertain him. When he comes in the morning, the first thing he has to do is to go into the female apartment, bow his head down in honor of his mother-in-law, and put on the floor a few Rupees, say five or ten, sometimes more if newly married. The food consists of all the delicacies of the season, and both the quantity and variety are often too great to be done justice to. The perfection of Hindoo culinary art is unreservedly brought into requisition on such occasions. Surrounded by a galaxy of beauty, the youthful son-in-law is restrained by a sense of shame from freely partaking of the feast specially provided for him. The earnest importunity of the females urges the bashful youth to eat more and more. If this be his first visit as son-in-law he finds himself quite bewildered in the midst of superfluity

Respectable Hindoo females who have children do not eat boiled rice on this particular day for fear of becoming Rakhasses, or cannibals prone to destroy their own offspring. The goddess Shasthi is the protectress of children. She is worshipped by all the women of Bengal six times in the year, except such as are barren or ill-fated enough to become virgin-widows.