without interruption, save where it has crumbled away by the constant action of the water, or has been purposely cut to admit of the passage of the water from a higher to a lower level, or to enable the ryot to set his fish-weir in a suitable gap. In such cases the ail forms a tolerable path-way from one village to another. But in most instances, the ail is a mere long strip of earth from about three to sixteen inches in heighth, and six to twelve in breadth, enabling the ryot to define his own plot of ground, and to reach it without going through the crops of his neighbour. The permanence of these "institutions," for they are nothing less, is very remarkable. In spite of litigation, encroachment, heavy rain, indistinctness of rights and claims, these light boundaries remain untouched and unchanged for years and generations. A few shovels-full of earth are occasionally added where the rain water is to be kept in, and thus the ail descends in the family, like the property which it demarcates.

The word bad-maash, or bud-maish is one to which recent events have attached a more than ordinary signification. The glossary says, "a disreputable person, one following evil courses." It is, however, something more than this. It usually means one who has been imprisoned for larceny or felony, or one who ought to be so imprisoned: a notorious bad character, without ostensible means of livelihood, apt to change his residence, and often lurking in the suburbs of great towns, on whom energetic darogahs and active magistrates keep a watchful eye. In the late sad outbreaks in populous bazars, some of the worst atrocities were committed by these scoundrels. In some parts of the country whole villages are composed of such men, and we have known cases where rents have not been collected for months and years, simply because no decent person dare enter a particular Alsatia, tenanted by professional thieves, who would turn out to defend the sanctity of their asylum, and who have no property which it could be worth any landholder's while to distrain, and where there is no one to purchase such, if, by chance, any were found. There is a stringent but necessary law, under which such notorious bad livers, against whom no overt act, but mere vagrancy or evil reputation may be proved, can be called on to furnish security for good behaviour, or in default be at once set to work in jail, at hard labour in irons. We venture to think that when order is restored in the disturbed districts, this salutary enactment will not be permitted to sleep.

A balagashti is rather vaguely denominated "a superintendent of watchmen, an inspector of police; a watchman, a patrol." This term is more generally reserved in Bengal for that particular body of police, which remain at the head station

of a district, not regularly appointed to any one police station, but ready to move at the direction of the magistrate on any point where a disturbance may be apprehended. They constitute, in fact, a sort of body guard, and their main fault is that they are not numerically sufficient.

Barani koortee is very properly noted under the head of barani from baran, a Persian word signifying rain, which we are surprised to find a scholar like Mr. Wilson, putting down as Hindi. The double term is used for a riding cloak, or coat, to keep off the rain, and in the mouths of Europeans is vulgarly called brandy koortee, and fondly imagined to have some connection with strong liquors and cigars. It is almost superfluous to say that, originally, it has no reference to either one or the other.

The universal word bazar is explained with pith and correctness, as "a market, a daily market, a market place. As opposed 'to a bazar, a hat is held only on certain days; a gunj is where grain, and the necessaries of life are principally sold, and 'generally wholesale. Bazars and hats are sometimes included in gunjes." As a compact definition of three terms, which are too often confounded or misapplied, the above is almost perfect. We would only add that a hat may be held anywhere, sometimes in the centre of a bazar, once or twice in the week, and sometimes away from it, in a cleared space, under some fine old trees. That is to say, there are bazars and hats in the same spot, and again bazars which have no weekly or bi-weekly hats,— and hats where there are no permanent shops to form a bazar. All these, if we mistake not, are very clearly defined in one of Shore's early minutes on the Perpetual Settlement, published in the celebrated fifth Report: and each are the source of large profits to the owner, much convenience to the neighbourhood, and frequent litigation to all parties.

On the word Brahman we might expect that Mr. Wilson's tendencies would lead him on to prolixity. But we were agreeably disappointed to find that he has managed to compress the principal divisions of this numerous and important class, such as Kanouj, Gour or Bengal, Mahratta and so on, into little more than a column. Considering his long residence in Bengal, we are however surprised that he should have set down the kulin families of Lower Bengal as six in number. We have heard first class Brahmans repeatedly enumerate them as five in number, adding with a boast which almost rivals that of the Arcadians, who were older than the moon, and which beats the Spaniard, from whom kings were descended, that the kulin had existed in the race of Brahmans, as long as the gods had existed in the Mount of Meru, the sacred Ganges on the face of the

earth, and the sun and moon in the sky. To these five, popularly known as Mookerji, Banerji, Chattarji, Gangooli, and Ghosal, Mr. Wilson adds a sixth, Kanjláha, rarely met with, and whose title to equal rank, we are sure, would be disputed by the kulin peerage of Bengal in committee.

The word caste, which has proved such a bugbear, and the bonds of which are tightened or relaxed as convenient, and on which treatises might be written, is judiciously compressed into a few lines. Due attention is given to the startling fact that the "lower orders of Indian Mahommedans pretend to distinctions" of caste; indeed, we can enumerate five separate divisions in the neighbourhood where we are writing, some of whom will smoke from the same hookah, or drink from the same brass pot, though they will not intermarry; and the origin of the term is correctly given as Portuguese, the word casta in that language signifying race, or species. For the thousand castes, which are to be found all over the Peninsula, the reader is very properly left to range through the Glossary at large.

In some of the revenue terms, there is occasionally a slight indistinctness. For instance, we take the not unusual word khas mahal. The word khas, we are told, is "applied to the 'management of estates, and the collection of the revenue by the officers of the Government, without any intermediate " person between them and the cultivators," and khas mahal is a district "held in the management of the Government." It would be more correct to say that the khas mahals, or own lands" of the Company, are those where that Political Reality possesses the right to rent, besides the right to revenue. Khas mahals in Bengal are composed of resumed estates, the proprietors of which have refused the proffered terms of settlement and of estates settled in perpetuity, which having come to the hammer for arrears of revenue, have been purchased by Government in the absence of other purchasers. It is not the object of the revenue authorities to compete for such estates. They are generally lands which were either too highly assessed, or which have deteriorated through mismanagement or bad seasons. They are, further, small in extent, and are bought in for Government for the sum of one rupee. After the lands have been identified, which is often a matter of some difficulty, the amount which each individual tenant is to pay, is settled summarily or the amount formerly paid by each middleman is fixed as the amount payable for a year. After that period a regular settlement, with a detail of all rights and liabilities, is made for a term of years; and as collection of rent by a native Tahsildar or collector generally ends in vexation and disappointment, the estate is farmed out to some independent third party,

pro

native or European, who collects the rents on an agreement which leaves him some margin for profit. The number of these estates in any district, compared with those not belonging to Government, is necessarily small. The large, popular, and fitable estates rarely come under public auction: or if they do, they are eagerly competed for by capitalists, who well know the advantages of a secure title and a sound investment in lands settled in perpetuity, and conveyed over by the flat of the collector.

The term khatauni affords a curious example of diversity of spelling. It is admitted by Mr. Wilson himself that it may be spelt in eight different ways, according to the dialects in which it is current, without grievous wrong; and no less than eight more corruptions are carefully enumerated, such as khuteonee, cuteaan, kuttowni, &c., &c. The term has also various significations. In Bengal it usually means an abstract of the accounts of the lands of any village, shewing the nature of the tenures and the extent of land held by each cultivator. In the NorthWest Provinces it is an account made up from the field-book, in which the plots of ground, belonging to each principal share in a village, and to each individual, are grouped together; and in Marathi, it is a sort of ledger made up from a merchant's day book. All these have been collected by Mr. Wilson from independent and reliable sources.

The word gungajali, or swearing by the water of the Ganges, was a phrase common enough before the introduction of the present judicial oath in our courts, when Brahmans and Hindoos were adjured in this way to speak the truth, as Mahommedans were on the Koran. We have lately heard a good deal about it in the cases of sepoys who had thus bound themselves to save or to destroy the lives of particular officers. It is curious that the word should also be employed to designate the private treasury of the Maharaja of Gwalior, which at one time was the richest of any in India, and a particularly fine kind of wheat grown in the Saugor and Nerbudda territories. Neither of these significations are given in the glossary, though we have them on the best authority. In either case it is obvious that the secondary meaning shows its connection with the primary one, by designating something pure or excellent of its kind, and therefore little short of holy. Mr. Wilson does not forget to note that the word Gunga or gang is ordinarily employed to designate any river, anywhere, great or small, amongst the lower orders, for such is the universal acceptation of gunga Ji.

On the word hackery, which many persons employ under the notion that they have got hold of a pure native term, the glossary tells us that though in common use, it is neither Hindi nor Bengali, though it may be a corruption of the Portuguese

Accarretai, to carry. The common use of this term is peculiar to Europeans. We never heard a native get nearer to it than a sakar or sagar gari. But goru ka gari, a bullock cart, is the simpler and more common phrase everywhere. Similarly, as to the word paddy, employed by Europeans to designate rice, the Glossary tells us what we were previously quite ignorant of, viz. that the word is Malay, meaning rice in the husk, either growing or cut, and it is no doubt in use in the Straits' settlements. But what, in this and other like cases, is to be deprecated, is, that Europeans should imagine that by talking of paddy and hackeries, they are talking of words which any native of India can by any possibility have heard of or read before he comes to have a smattering of English.

On the word guru, we expected something more than that it means a spiritual teacher of the Vedas, in early times, or a person who initiates others into a particular sect or tribe, in Îater days. The guru of the present day is a sort of half chaplain, half wandering friar, who goes about to the houses of his various disciples or members of his flock, meeting with great respect and attention, and eating everywhere of the best. His acquirements often consist of a smattering of Sanskrit: such as current slokes or couplets inculcating morality and social duties. When this worthy graciously signifies his intention of staying a day or two with one of his flock, the house is swept and cleaned, new cooking and eating utensils are bought in the bazar; milk, curds, fruits and vegetables, the best of their kind, are set before the expounder of religion, who condescends to partake of them, and to accept a present of money, according to the means and station of the disciple, the whole being an equivalent for the honour of the friendly visit, and for the refreshment of what an old covenanter would have termed, "a dry clatter ' of morality driven about the luggs." Several Hindus have naively confessed to us that they thought such entertainments a monstrous bore. But, on the other hand, the unctuous relish with which the guru himself describes one of these visits, from memory or by anticipation, must be seen to be appreciated. A lower sort of teacher is the guru mahashahoy or village dominie, a sort of Erasmus Holiday, who with a small smattering of Bengali, or Hindi, keeps a school, which he does not call an academy, in a shed not much better than a decent cow house in which assemble daily from twenty to thirty boys of different castes, who, in most cases without books of any kind, learn to spell, read, and write from dictation; whose materials are the sand of the floor, or the leaves of the plantain and the tal tree: and whose whole stock of learning does not get beyond a slight knowledge of accounts, agricultural or commercial, a few curDEC., 1857.