MISCELLANEA. 
283 
Hospital for Animals, at Broach, near Surat. 
On the following day, our friend, the Sannyassee, undertaking’ 
to be our guide, we paid a visit to the Pingiadole, or Banyan 
hospital for animals. It was commodious and spacious, closed 
with gates, and exactly resembled a large straw-yard in England : 
round it were stalls for the invalid inhabitants. Numbers of le^ 
and old cattle, which reminded us of Pharaoh’s ill-favoured kine, 
seemed spending their last days in comfort and luxury, and some 
were actually breathing their last. Besides these, and some 
milch cows, there were some old horses; an antelope, with its 
young one, which seemed as if it had broken its leg, and a pea¬ 
cock ; but we saw no appearance of the fleas and other insects 
which are said to be supported here. The whole looked so com¬ 
fortable, that we could have spent the day quite as agreeably 
there, as in some of the sarais, caravanseras, and dunumsallahs, 
which it has been our fate to visit.— Elwood’s Travels through 
India. 
New Use of Asses. 
The murrain was a very common and fatal disorder some years 
since. Like the rot in sheep, it exercised the ingenuity of con¬ 
jecture and quackery. It was by some imputed to a worm with 
a very large head, and of very vivid colours, which, it was said, 
poisoned the water that the cattle drunk. By others it was con¬ 
jectured that some poisonous plant, the seed of which I supposed 
dropped from the clouds at that particular period, and which 
most fortunately asses were fond of. On account of this happy 
propensity they were purchased by many sagacious graziers, and, 
the murrain ceasing about this period, the asses had all the 
honour: and it is still usual to keep two or three of these ani¬ 
mals on a farm. The number of cattle killed by this dreadful 
disease was immense—many persons lost almost the entire of 
their stock, and were completely beggared. However the cure 
of it may have been effected, it has not been known for several 
years .—DuttoiCs Survey of the County of Clare, p. 79. 
New-year’s Day. 
In Strathdown, on new-year’s day fires of juniper are kindled 
in every apartment of the house, to the pungent smoke of which 
every member of the family is exposed until he coughs and 
sneezes sufficiently, or, in fact, is half suffocated. All the horses 
and cattle then pass through the same fumigation, which not only 
removes every disease that may affect the frame at the time, but 
fortifies the constitution against every future attack. 
