ble (selon Herodote) d' offrir le plus vif des etres crées au plus vif des etres non crées." But nothing whatever to this purpose occurs in Herodotus, nor as it is believed in any other author.* Nor had such a sacrifice existed amongst the Scythians, and had they migrated into Scandinavia, does it any where appear that the Scandinavians, or the Getoe or Yutes in Germany sacrificed a horse to the Sun at the feast of Yule. For such a circumstance is not mentioned in a late work by Professor Mone, entitled Geschichte des Heidenthums in Nordlichen Europa, or the History of Paganism in Northern Europe, and, on the contrary, he states that this festival was celebrated particularly in Sweden, and that at it a boar and not a horse was sacrificed. The supposed coincidence, therefore, in religion between the Scythians, the Rajputs, and Teutonic people, on which Major Todd's system principally depends, rests on assumptions which are demonstrably un founded. FROM the preceding remarks, it will perhaps appear, that Major Todd has committed himself by entering into researches for the proper investigation of which his previous studies had not suf ficiently qualified him. It is, therefore, much to be regretted that persons in this country who find a pleasure in literary pursuits, but whose education and learning are unadapted for the discussion of subjects, which require not only extensive erudition, but an ample command of books, will not content themselves with carefully examining and impartially recording the various circumstances which come under their notice. In the present state of knowledge respecting the antiquities, history and religion of India, it is facts and not hypotheses which are required; and the writer who furnishes, in however homely and unambitious a style, new and correct information on such subjects will always receive much more attention from the public, than the author of the most elaborate and brilliant system. But, even to succeed in framing an hypothesis relative to the origin and affinity of nations which would deserve the slightest consideration, it must be obvious that a competent acquaintance with various languages, with philology, geography, mythology, chronology, and history, and a previous course of extensive reading are indispensable; and whenever, consequently, a writer who has obviously no pretensions to such qualifications obtrudes upon the public, his crude thoughts on a subject which has hitherto baffled the unwearied powers of research of the most learned and able men, the severity of criticism cannot be more properly employed than in exhibiting the ill success of his presumption in order to deter others from following so pernicious an example. • STRABO indeed says that the Massageto acknowledge no other God than the Sun, and sacrificed the horse to him; but he does not restrict the sacrifice to any particular festival. ART. V.-The History of a Brahmin's Family. SOME years ago in the village of Ambolee, lived a Brahmin and his wife, and their son: the old man, unlike that race of people generally, was of a spare make and prominent featuressomething there was sharp and shrewd about him, which attracted attention from the passer-by, but withal he was a bigot of the worst description, and had he been a Poet, would have gloried in those expressive lines My boast is not that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth; The son of parents now transformed to cows. THE Snows, I was going to say, of fifty years were on his head, forgetting their polished pates, which shine as brightly as the brass pots scrubbed by their wives-but in his wrinkled brow were silver hairs to be seen, and over his eyes and on his chin. He was lord of the village-to him the soparee leaf, on days of holy festivity, was brought-he was the moderator, the arbitrator in all village quarrels, the Pater patronus, and this applies too, for his own father was still alive, though daily expecting that longed-for consummation, the quitting his own miserably shattered shell for the fattened carcase of a cow, and meditating no doubt on the way in which he would whisk his tail, raise his head and low with gratitude as he broused on the field before his house-such hopes must have sweetened the decline of life incalculably, and no doubt his loving children, for his and their sakes, wished him to realize them as soon as possible. But the father's wife (for to prevent mistakes we shall call them grand-father, father and son)-the father's wife was a woman, such as Munoo must have had in contemplation, when he gave out that splendid description of a Brahmin's spouse, that she was to be as "beautiful as a Phenicopteros, and as portly as an Elephant"-unluckily the shortness of one leg deprived her of an exact likeness to both these ladylike creatures; but what she lost by this curtailed limb, she gained in the length and strength of her tongue, which, with the exception of one. gentlewoman of my acquaintance, was the longest and loudest I ever beheld or heard. Nature is generally bountiful in the extreme in some one point, where she has been lacking of her usual courtesy in another and I imagine all the tongues of the village dames together could not vie with hers when once its powers were exerted to defend or attack, in both of which cases she invariably came off the conqueror. In fact it was the village Gong, for as she slept from eleven in the morning till two P. M., and again from three to six P. M., you could tell the hours to a minute, and if at midnight any thing occurred to unlock the bonds of sleep, she would set the whole village in an uproar, off would go all the cocks and hens in the place, then the Pariah dogs and jackalls, then the jackasses would chime in most sonorously claiming their share in the midnight concert; but high above all, like a boatswain's whistle in a storm, would be sounding the shrill strong voice of Anabhaee Lakshmee, as if she were a priestess leading off a hymn to the God of confusion and discord-a pause, perhaps, of a minute would ensue, just long enough to delude into the idea that silence would again re-assert her reign, when all at once the whole chorus would burst out again in the same tune, from the lowest note over every intermediate key, up to the victorious and unapproachable treble of Anabhaee Lakshmee. However, this must be said of her, that she was a capital housewife; she kept her son in order, was regular in her devotions, if one may lower a word of so holy an import to express the blind worship of stocks and stones, and above all she was charitable. At eight in the morning she would regularly perform her ablutions, mixed with the necessary prayers, &c., three times a day would she pronounce the sacred name with all imaginable respect and volubility, and twice a day, at ten in the morning and ten at night, would she break her fast with an ample meal, which she devoured with the same ravenous haste and apparent satisfaction with which an adjutant gulps down a young cat, or a vulture smacks his beek over a sleek Parsee. The temples were visited by her with great regularity, she would decorate the immortal bull of Shiva with flowers, or parade round the Bur tree with indefatigable piety. So unceasing a show of good works obtained her great credit, and as she was known to lord it over her husband, the Priests found the way to his ear and his purse only by her means. One thing alone embittered her peace of mind, and that was a rebellious son. THIS young monster, for so in the sequel we shall find him to be, would have had, were it not for a sulky physiognomy, rather a comical obliquity of vision, he was short and thick made, very taciturn, a great eater like all his fathers, and a great rogue into the bargain, which character may or may not have been hereditarily acquired. After the sacred thread at the age of ten had been bound around him, and he became a man, and could no longer be indulged with three meals a day, he got betrothed, was eventually married, and ultimately became a widower; he inherited a portion of his father's property, and kept up a separate establishment under the same roof: during all this period he had been nearly a hundred times, death and destruction to Anabhaee Lakshmee; considering her impetuous disposition, it is rather extraordinary, that things went on so well for such a length of time. But she consoled herself with the hope of his one day becoming more tractable, and the devoutness of his conduct seemed to lend some probability to such a change eventually. The village in which they lived, was one of the prettiest in the Konkan, situated inland about ten miles from the sea shore. The ride to it during or after the monsoon, was beautiful, over an undulating green plain, H covered in parts with the capacious and branching banyan tree, forming a delightful shade for the weary traveller; beyond this, again you appeared to enter a grove, then emerged into the open air, with the blue low range of hills before you, and far beyond the cloud topped gigantic rocky heights of the ghats, forming at close of eve against the sky, an irregular belt which fancy might represent as the boundary of this lower world. Tradition says, that the ocean flowed up to their feet, and washed their base in former times, but that magnificent avatar of Vishnu, Parasuram, shot an arrow over the trembling deep, and where it struck, thither flew back the affrighted waters, and beyond that spot they have never since been known to travel, the distance being about forty miles from the sea to the hills. A little rivulet formed during the rains, ran between two small eminences, and passing these under the shade of some noble banyan trees rose the habitation of Bhicajee Abajee and Anabhaee Lakshmee-it was built as all Brahminy, or I should say Native houses are, with due regard to position, that is square ways with the four quarters of the heaven. When I first entered the village, there was no Dhurumsala, or so ruinous an one, that every blast threatened its destruction. I therefore proceeded to the quarters of the Khote, who was the being above described; the threshold I could not cross, no, nor even set foot on the outer verandah, so polluted a being was I, but a large and thickly matted shed secured me from the rain, and thither my bed was brought, and there I took up my abode. A slave girl swept the cowdunged floor clean, some milk, a few eggs and butter were brought to me, some Apps made of rice, not unlike what I have seen in Persia, and very palatable. Bhicajee Abajee was neither ostentatious in his professions, nor liberal in his flattery, he answered my questions drily and shortly-sat still and silent, and I could fancy, was contemplating me with nearly irrepressible hatred. The little that he said was enough to show how he detested our Government, though he feared it. For these high and haughty personages are now treated with little respect by the other castes; they have lost their influence; they can no longer tyrannize over an unresisting people, they have no longer the power of life and death in their hands, and being keenly sensible of their great fall, it is not wonderful that they should regard the authors of it with envy, hatred, and malice. A poor cultivator of the soil is now secure from the harpy grasp of these avaricious beings, and is as sure to have justice done him, as he had formerly injustice. The hopeful limb of the family, young Abbajee, came to pay his respects, and certainly was a rare lad-his Janus-like peepers appeared, as a friend of mine used to say of an associate, as if he were looking out of both coach windows at the same time. Notwithstanding his usual solemnity, he unbent gradually, and his stiffness wearing away, he gave me sundry hints of the state of his family, which I have em bodied in the above account-at night-fall the buffaloes and bullocks and cows were regularly penned up in a large and clean cattle-house, adjoining the shed where I had taken up my quartersfresh grass was given to them, and water from a well close bythey were watched and fed by a pretty slave girl, at least pretty she appeared to be in the estimation of master Abbajee, who while one of his bright dark eyes was fixed on my countenance, seemed to follow her every motion very attentively with it's fellow; he had the perfect power of directing them at will, independent of each other. After all had retired, I had an opportunity of looking around me. The house of the old Brahmin was long, and regularly built-like most Mahratta houses, there were the two open front and back verandahs, and the inner part of the house was divided into several small rooms: to the left, was rather a lofty and upper-storied grannary, where the grain was kept, bound up in compact straw swathings. The house and this attached building were both neatly tiled. To the right was the bullock shed I mentiontioned, well thatched and remarkably clean. But my eyes were most attracted by a representation of Shewa on one of the sides of the outer verandah, which is rather an uncommon circumstance, these walls being generally covered with the exploits of Chrishna, the Hindu mercury, as far as his notorious thieving actions are concerned-Shewa was here represented with only one head and three eyes-only I say, for this immortal Gentleman has the luck to have five occasionally; and, elegantly executed as they generally are, you would fancy them so many turnips starting out of a thick stalk, with slashes for the eyes, noses and mouths, no doubt most filially like the great original. However here one tremendous head was quite sufficient-tremendous verily, for the Ganges was rolling all its flood of waters through his hair, and here and there a white speck of plaster was intended, I imagine, to illustrate the feathery foam of that imperial river, as it impetuously bounds along. The impetuosity was well described by a strait dash short and thick, with the points of the deity's hair sticking up through it, like so many rat-tails. On his divine brow, the crescent gleamed, and an enormous garland of human skulls was hanging round his neck-threaded I opine, with the sinews of legs and arms. His broad and capacious gorge was of a blue colour; by the bye I forgot to say, that his prevailing color was white, for down that monstrous throat had been poured the poison which the agitated ocean produced, when the angels of heaven, using the serpent Vasookee for a rope, who had bound himself around the mountain Mandar, began to churn the huge sea, that the immortal juice Amreeta might be found; but churning over much, a liquor sprang up so deadly a poison, that Shewa drank it to preserve the universe from destruction- hence the tint on his beautiful neck.' But I must hasten my description; four brawny arms were loaded with one battle axe, or rather one was-two were held out like the wings of a |