HINDUSTANEE HOROMETRY. 87 



the reft in the fame puhur at all. So much this and 

 fimilar freedoms have been and can be taken with time 

 in Hinduflan, that we may frequently hear the follow- 

 ing ftory : While the fall: of Rumuzan lafts, it is not 

 lawful for the Mujfulmans to eat or drink in the days 

 though at night they not only do both, but can unin- 

 terruptedly enjoy its other pleafures alfo; and upon 

 fuch an occafion, a certain Omra fent to enquire of his 

 G y buree y alee y if it was ftill night; to which the com- 

 plaifant bellman replied in the true ftyle of oriental 

 adulation, Rat to ho chookee mugut peer moorjhid ke 

 wafte do g y huree y myn luga rukee. " Night is pad to 

 " be fure; but I have yet two hours in referve for his 

 u worfhip's conveniency." The apparatus with which 

 the hours are meafured and announced, confifts of a 

 fhallow bell-metal pan, named, from its office, g,hu- 

 ree y al, and fufpended fo as to be eafily (truck with a 

 wooden mallet by the G y huree y alee y who thus ftrikes 

 the gyhurees as they pafs, and which he learns from an 

 empty thin brafs cup [kutoree) perforated at bottom, 

 and placed on the furface of water in a large vef- 

 fel, where nothing can difturb it, while the water gra- 

 dually fills the cup, and links it in the fpace of one 

 g,h?iree t to which this hour-cup or kutoree has pre- 

 vioufly been adjufted aftronomicaily by an aftrolabe, 

 ufed for fuch purpofes in India. Thefe kutorees are 

 now and then found with their requifite divilions and 

 fubdivifions, very fcientirically marked in Sanfcrit cha- 

 racters, and may have their ufes for the more difficult 

 and abftrufe operations of the mathematician or aftro- 

 loger: but for the ordinary occurrences of life, I be- 

 lieve the fimple rude horology defcribed above fuf- 

 fices (perhaps divided into fourths ofa-gjouree) theAlia- 

 tics in general, who, by the bye, are often wonderfully 

 uninformed refpecung every thing of this kind. The 

 whole, indeed, appears, even to the better forts of 

 people, fo perplexing and inconvenient, that they are 

 very ready to adopt our divifions of time, when their 

 refidence among or near us puts this in their power : 



F 4 whence 



