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rainy season, in ground already prepared for the purpose: and 
during the fair intervals of the wet months they plow for wheat, 
gram, pease, and other articles, which they sow in October and 
reap in February: the wheat thrives best in ground wherein no- 
thing has been produced the preceding year: for gram and pease, 
which they sow broad cast, they prefer low rice-grounds, and 
other wet places: for all the rest they use the drill. The juarree 
generally springs out of the earth on the fifth or sixth day; about 
a fortnight afterwards they weed it by a machine called coalpah, 
and repeat the operation in ten or fifteen days. 
At the earliest dawn of morning in all the Hindoo towns and 
villages, the hand-mills are at work; when the menials and widows 
grind meal sufficient for the daily consumption of the family. 
There is a windmill at Bombay for grinding corn, but I do not 
recollect seeing another in India; where the usual method of 
grinding is with mill-stones, and always performed by women, 
who resume their task every morning; especially the forlorn Hin- 
doo widows, divested of every ornament, and with their heads 
shaved, degraded to almost a state of servitude. Very similar 
must have been the custom in Judea, from the pathetical lamen- 
tation of the prophet, alluding to this very circumstance : “ Come 
down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on 
the ground, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more 
be called tender and delicate: take the mill-stones, and grind 
meal; sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of 
Chaldea, for thou shalt no more be called Lhe lady of the king- 
doms!” Thus when the Hindoo female, who had perhaps been the 
pride and ornament of the family, is humbled on the death of her 
