66 WANDEEINGS OF A 



very fair and handsome, although they have not the erect 

 and graceful carriage of the Hindoos. 



Goitre is very prevalent after the age of thirty. 



The habitations of the natives are usually flat-roofed, and 

 built in the "bottoms of ravines, where the heat is extreme in 

 summer. 



The following curious custom prevails during the summer 

 months : — Children are placed on straw beds, generally 

 covered over, and put beneath a small stream, which is made 

 to play upon the temple, by means of a piece of bark shaped 

 like a water-spout. In any shady spot one or two children 

 may be seen undergoing this ordeal, while their mothers are 

 toiling in the adjacent field. 



Natives have informed me that the children soon get 

 accustomed to this treatment, falling asleep when placed 

 under the stream, and awakening so soon as the water ceases 

 to play on their temples. 



Although many are said to die from this novel hardening 

 system, it must be confessed that a healthier race than the 

 survivors are not to be anywhere met with. 



It is a study for a painter to mark the fair mother, bend- 

 ing over her Uttle child as it lies in some shady bower, formed 

 of pomegranate, wild-fig, and acacia, wreathed with woodbine 

 and the many gorgeous exotics of that region in all their wild 

 luxuriance and beauty. 



It is, moreover, in such situations that the ornithologist' 

 will find an endless variety of interesting objects. Let him 

 stray by the clear and gushing mountain-stream, o'erhung 

 and canopied by the umbrageous plantain, the mulberry, or 

 willow. He must creep along gently, for the little fairies are 

 shy and easily alarmed. See ! the blue water-thrush {Myio- 

 phonus temminckii) perched on that half-submerged rock; 



