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in their penances, ablutions, or food. The lower classes, especially, 

 eat of almost every thing that comes in their way; as mutton, 

 goat, wild-hog, game and fish. Major Moor mentions two places 

 by name where the Mahrattas eat beef, and permit cattle to be 

 killed, and publicly exposed to sale. I should rather have sup- 

 posed it was intended for the food of Mahomedans, had not this 

 discriminating writer been so very particular. 



The lower tribes of Hindoos are not so scrupulous as the higher 

 about what they eat, or what they touch; especially if they are not 

 observed by others. When at a distance from their families, and 

 out of sight of their priests, many divest themselves of these nice 

 ideas of purity. Those domesticated with Europeans generally 

 affect to be very scrupulous: an English table, covered with a 

 variety of food, is necessarily surrounded by a number of servants 

 of different castes to attend the guests. At Baroche, Surat and 

 Bombay, a Hindoo will not remove a dish that has been defiled 

 with beef, a Mahomedan cannot touch a plate polluted by pork, 

 nor will a Parsee take one away on which is hare or rabbit. I 

 never knew more than one Parsee servant who would snuff a 

 candle, from a fear of extinguishing the symbol of the deity he 

 worships; nor would this man ever do it in presence of another 

 Parsee. 



The palanquin-bearers, although in general a pleasant set of 

 people, are sometimes on a journey extremely tenacious of their 

 privileges of caste, and carry their prejudices to a ridiculous length. 

 I knew a gentleman, avIio having formed a party for a little excur- 

 sion into the country, provided a round of beef, as a principal 



