730 Tour in H. H. the Nizanis Territories, QNo 117. 



structed of hewn stone ; the labour required in rendering the last ten- 

 able, diminishes in no ordinary degree their number, although it may 

 render the few that are constructed more formidable as places of 

 defence. 



Food. — The Brahmins of Telingana affect to eat nothing that ever 

 was possessed of life, but report attributes to them any thing but a strict 

 fulfilment of their profession. Their usual diet consists of rice highly 

 seasoned, vegetable curries, cakes flavoured with garlic and asafoetida 

 fried in ghee, wheaten bread, &c. ; with the assistance of the ghee, flour, 

 and condiments, they take good care to avoid the evil consequences 

 said to arise from an unazotized diet. The food of the Zemindars of the 

 Coombee caste, resembles that of the Brahmins, with the addition of 

 mutton, fowl, game, &c. The poverty of the cultivators restricts their 

 diet to dry grains ; leguminosae being within the reach of iaw, and 

 that only in particular districts. This arises not from the higher price 

 of equal quantities of rice and dry grains, but from the little nourish- 

 ment yielded by the latter, rendering it a more expensive article 

 of diet. It is only on occasions of festivals or merry-makings that 

 they eat flesh, and (duhee, curdled milk) is also a very common article of 

 diet among the poorer classes. The Goands and outcastes, as elsewhere, 

 are wholly without scruples as to their diet, rejecting nothing, whether 

 animal or vegetable, that can be digested by the stomach, and which is 

 not actually poisonous. 



Drinking the fermented sap of the palmyra tree, often to intoxica- 

 tion, is the invariable daily custom of the Telingana peasants. To- 

 wards Chinnore and Mahdapore, the palmyra tree is not so common, 

 but is then much more detrimental. Matwa spirit, distilled from the 

 flowers of the Bassia Latifolia, a common jungle tree, is had very 

 cheap, and in consequence is much used. Brahmins are charged 

 with partaking of both these forbidden beverages in secret, and perhaps 

 with truth, for it would require a more heroic virtue than they are sup- 

 posed to be possessed of, to keep them from an indulgence so readily 

 procured, and the effects of which, a very ordinary degree of caution 

 can conceal. Tobacco is used by all classes, being smoked and snuffed. 

 Little bhang, or any of its preparations, and less opium, are consumed 

 by the Telingas ; but the Goands indulge, as far as their means will 

 permit, in the latter, to which they are much addicted. 



