3L8 



On the Hull in Malwa. 



[No. 99. 





ner of the dhotis) ; fortunate if he has fallen into a comparatively quiet 

 set, and escapes a pelting with mud, shoes, filth, or stones. Already 

 much excited, and imitating drunkenness, ebrioli, if not already 

 drunk with opium, bang, and other such intoxicating (drugs, without 

 which indeed they could hardly support the fatigue of such violent 

 and prolonged sport) the mob with this rude play, and its concomitants 

 shouting, singing, and Bacchanalian dancing, has soon worked itself 

 into a sort of frenzy : they dress themselves up so as to look like bears 

 &c. or as the Brimha Vaiverta instructs, " make a swan or a monkey 

 with cotton." The most absurd antics are played : you may see 

 two individuals abusing each other in the grossest language, imme- 

 diately afterwards joining in unmeaning and immoderate laughter, 

 " Ex turpissima lite in risum diffusi". Near them perhaps, and with 

 equal reason, stands a man sobbing bitterly as if some misfortune 

 had happened to him (26) ; others " delighting in nastiness and holy ob- 

 scenity," clothe themselves in outrageous fashions, (or like the lOvtyaWoi 

 at the Dionysia, in women's dresses) and strive to outdo each other 

 in their indelicate and ridiculous postures; nor will they feel shame 

 in thus acting, though their " mothers or sisters or brother's wife are 

 looking on." (27) All classes seem to lose their senses ; an individual 

 on all other occasions quiet and decent in his behaviour — some bunian 

 for instance, well off in the world — will forget, for the time, all sense of 

 decency, and think it no degradation to expose himself for the sport of 

 an insane rabble. He seems to be the prototype of the " Rex-stultorum ;" 

 round his neck will be hung a disgusting chaplet of old shoes, live 

 frogs, and bones ; a broken dust basket, supported over his head on a 

 bamboo, represents a regal chatta; worn-out brooms, supply the place of 

 chowrees ; and his face having been blackened, he is mounted on a sorry 

 donkey, (28) and paraded in mimic state through the streets, his drunken 

 attendants hooting, shouting, calling him all the fine names they can 



26. This, which might seem to be connected with those demonstrations of grief 

 which some believe to have pervaded all, and particularly this, the apparently most 

 joyous of the festivals of antiquity, is generally acted as if real, can be nothing more 

 than the maudlin of drunkenness, as the exuberance of a forced and unnatural gaiety, 

 a mere variety of extravagance (major dementia.) 



27. The last sentence, and much of the succeeding description [of the truth of 

 which I have taken pains to be assured] are copied from a little Jain treatise against 

 these practices ; called the " Mithy at Kund," which we might translate, the " Bank 

 of Fallacies". 



28. Tutting on an asses' mask, and mounted on an ass. 



