[201] Tales of the O’Hara Family. First Series.
LONDON HOLIDAYS.
Holidays, like all other natural and lively things, are good things; and the abuse does not argue against the use. They serve to keep people in mind that there is a green and glad world, as well as a world of brick and mortar and money-getting. They remind them disinterestedly of one another, or that they have other things to interchange besides bills and commodities. If it were not for holidays and poetry, and such like stumbling blocks to square-toes, there would be no getting out of the way of care and common-places.—They keep the world fresh for improvement. The great abuse of holidays is when they are too few. There are offices, we understand, in the city, in which, with the exception of Sundays, people have but one holiday or so throughout the year, which appears to us a very melancholy hilarity. It is like a single living thing in a solitude, which only adds to the solitariness. A clerk issuing forth on his exclusive Good Friday must in vain attempt to be merry, unless he is a very merry person at other times. He must be oppressed with a sense of all the rest of the year. He cannot have time to smile before he has to be grave again. It is a difference, a dream, a wrench, a lay-sabbath, any thing but a holiday. There was a Greek philosopher, who, when he was asked on his death-bed what return could be made him for the good he had done his country, requested that all the little boys might have a holiday on the anniversary of his birth-day. Doubtless they had many besides, and yet he would give them another. When we were at school, we had a holiday on every saint’s day, and this was pretty nearly all that we, or, indeed, any one else, knew of some of those blessed names in the calendar. When we came to know that they had earned this pleasure for us by martyrdom and torment, we congratulated ourselves that we had not known it sooner; and yet, upon the principle of the Greek philosopher, perhaps a true lover of mannikin-kind would hardly object to have his old age burnt out at the stake, if he could secure to thousands hereafter the beatitude of a summer’s holiday.[202]
[202] Literary Pocket Book.
THE HUSBANDMEN OF HINDU.
They are generally termed Koonbees, and on the whole they are better informed than the lower classes of our own countrymen; they certainly far surpass them in propriety and orderliness of demeanour. They are mild and unobtrusive in their manners, and quickly shrink from any thing like an opposite behaviour in others. Litigation is not a marked part of their character. They are forgetful of injury; or if they harbour animosity, they are seldom hurried by it into acts of violence or cruelty. Custom has taught them not to have much respect for their women, or rather, indeed, to look on them with contempt; but they are always indulgent to them, and never put any restraint on their liberty. The great attachment they have to their children forms an amiable part of their character. They are usually frugal, inclining to parsimony, and not improvident; but at their marriage feasts they are lavish and profuse, and on these and other occasions often contract debts that are a burden to them for life. Their religion strongly enjoins charity, and they are disposed to be hospitable, but their extreme poverty is a bar to their being extensively so. No person, however, would ever be in want of a meal amongst them, and they are always kind and attentive to strangers when there is nothing offensive in their manners. They are just in their dealings amongst themselves, but would not be scrupulous in overreaching government or those without. Theft is scarcely known amongst them, and the voice of the community is loud against all breaches of decorum, and attaches weight and respectability to virtuous conduct in its members. The vices of this people, which they owe chiefly to their government, are dissimulation, cunning, and a disregard to truth. They are naturally timid, and will endeavour to redress their wrongs rather by stratagem than more generous means; when roused, however, they will be found not without courage, nor by any means contemptible enemies. Although not remarkable for sharpness, they are not wanting in intelligence. They are all minutely informed in every thing that relates to their own calling. They are fond of conversation, discuss the merits of different modes of agriculture, the characters of their neighbours, and every thing that relates to the concerns of the community, and many of them are not without a tolerable knowledge of the leading events of the history of their country.
The Hindu husbandman rises at cock crow, washes his hands, feet, and face, repeats the names of some of his gods, and perhaps takes a whiff of his pipe or a quid of tobacco, and is now ready to begin his labour. He lets loose his oxen, and drives them leisurely to his fields, allowing them to graze, if there is any grass on the ground, as they go along, and takes his breakfast with him tied up in a dirty cloth, or it is sent after him by one of his children, and consists of a cake (made unleavened of the flour of Badjeree or Juwaree,) and some of the cookery of the preceding day, or an onion or two. On reaching his field it is perhaps seven or eight o’clock; he yokes his oxen, if any of the operations of husbandry require it, and works for an hour or two, then squats down and takes his breakfast, but without loosing his cattle. He resumes his work in a quarter of an hour, and goes on till near twelve o’clock, when his wife arrives with his dinner. He then unyokes his oxen, drives them to drink, and allows them to graze or gives them straw; and takes his dinner by the side of a well or a stream, or under the shade of a tree if there happens to be one, and is waited on during his meal by his wife. After his dinner he is joined by any of his fellow labourers who may be near, and after a chat takes a nap on his spread cumley or jota for half an hour, while his wife eats what he has left. He yokes his cattle again about two or half-past two o’clock, and works till sunset, when he proceeds leisurely home, ties up and feeds his oxen, then goes himself to a brook, bathes and washes, or has hot water thrown over him by his wife at home. After his ablutions, and perhaps on holidays anointing himself with sandal wood oil, he prays before his household gods, and often visits one or more of the village temples. His wife by this time has prepared his supper, which he takes in company with the males of the family. His principal enjoyment seems to be between this meal and bed-time, which is nine or ten o’clock. He now fondles and plays with his children, visits or is visited by his neighbours, and converses about the labour of the day and concerns of the village, either in the open air or by the glimmering light of a lamp, learns from the shopkeeper or beadle what strangers have passed or stopped at the village, and their history, and from any of the community that may have been at the city (Poohnah) what news he has brought. In the less busy times, which are two or three months in the year, the cultivators take their meals at home, and have sufficient leisure for amusement. They then sit in groups in the shade and converse, visit their friends in the neighbouring villages, go on pilgrimages, &c. &c.