198 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
says, “Rain enters the lunar orb, which consists of 
water.” This connexion of the moon with the changes 
of the weather is recognized by Shakspere, who calls her 
the “ Governess of the Floods,”* and is a meteorological 
tradition. The Hindoos represent Soma as the god of 
showers and green things; when he descends in his car, 
drawn by antelopes, bearing in his bosom a sleeping 
fawn, he typifies the irregular motion of the moon itself, 
and the dependence of vegetation upon it for the neces¬ 
sary fluctuations of the weather. Barbarous as were the 
old Hindoo rites, the laws of hospitality were sacred 
among them ; and he who planted a tope or grove, or 
opened a well and surrounded it with trees for the shade 
and refreshment of the traveller, was held for ever after 
a descendant of the gods. Timul Naik, Raja of Tanjora, 
became a deity for having built a choultry or resting- 
place for pilgrims, near the pagoda of Mandura; and to 
the neglect of these acts of benevolence by the wealthy 
British residents of Hindostan, the difficulties of Chris¬ 
tianity have been increased tenfold—the Christian being 
regarded as selfish and uncharitable. 
Among the plants sacred to the religion of the Hin¬ 
doos, the cusa or cusha grass holds an important place. 
It is the poa cynosuroides of Linnaeus : its leaves are 
long, acutely jagged downwards, but smooth on the other 
parts, and so sharp and tapering as to furnish the Hin¬ 
doos with a favourite metaphor, in which it represents 
acuteness of intellect. The fruit-stalk of this grass rises 
about two feet from the ground, and is terminated by a 
* Midsummer Niyht’s Bream . 
