small change for a rupee, you have often to go or send to the Potdar for it; and if the applicant be a foreigner, he takes pretty good care to deduct three or four pice for the accommodation. These men act sometimes in the capacity of pawnbrokers, by lending small sums of money upon the gold and silver ornaments, which all here possess, in a greater or lesser degree; for she must be a wretchedly poor woman indeed, that cannot show a silver bangle or anklet upon the arm or leg. I may observe that these bangles and anklets are the chief ornaments of the Hindoo woman. They are clasped round the arms and ankles in early youth, and never removed. Many of them are soldered on; and instances have occurred in which the parties wearing them have been murdered, or had the limb cut off, with the purpose of gaining possession of these ornaments, so often the only wealth which the poor boast of on their marriage. A silver ring is also commonly worn on the great and second toe; and the nose and ears are pierced for the insertion of similar ornaments. Those who are too poor to purchase silver bangles, &c., wear hoops of coloured glass, ivory, or bone, which make a curious jingling noise as they walk. The money-lenders purchase or exchange all sorts of foreign coin; and for the few sovereigns that I found at the bottom of my purse, upon landing in India, I received in change, from one of these men, eleven rupees each, equal to twentytwo shillings of our money. I was only sorry I had not more sovereigns to turn them into the Company's

I

silver, as I very soon found that money is obtained with as much difficulty at Bombay as in England; and that people work quite as hard for it there as here. The golden expectations of youth are too often disappointed in India. There is no country in which you sooner become acquainted with the sad realities of life. Even in that rich land, man must eat bread by the sweat of his brow.

The Potdar of the street is not a trusty man to deal with; he will impose upon you whenever opportunity offers. A few days before I left Bombay for England, I was rather anxious to bring home with me some of the native ornaments, and gave their weight in rupees for articles, which, I was told, were composed of pure silver. Upon my arrival in England, however, I was much annoyed to find that the rings, bangles, and nose-ornaments, were only tubes of the precious metal, into which lead had been run, to increase their weight. I had, indeed, paid rather dear for my whistle. But I must not condemn all indiscriminately, for there are numbers of highly respectable Shroffs, or native bankers, who have their own private offices in the Fort, and belong to quite a different class from that of our humble friend of the streets; and as the business of banking is chiefly confined, in the interior of India, to the issuing and discounting of bills of exchange, or what are called Hoondies, the Shroff is a most useful man; and from the immense number of these hoondies that are in circulation, we may conclude that petty tradesmen

would get on badly without their assistance. Our Potdar of the corner is furnished with an inkstand, pens and paper, acids for testing the genuineness of coin, &c., and generally a pair of old-fashioned spectacles; for the money-changer is generally an old man, and cannot depend implicitly upon his own eyes.

The opium seller has also his little table in the public street, with his box and scales upon it, and tempting samples of the "dreamy drug." One glance at the man will convince you that he is one of his own best customers; the soiled and disorderly turban and dress show you that he is not himself. As a poisoner, who shuns the broad day, he comes creeping out of some narrow, dark alley, just when

"Morn her rosy steps in the Eastern clime,

Advancing, sows the earth with orient pearl,"

And man is tempted to stroll abroad early to breathe the cool atmosphere, and gaze upon the landscape still glittering with the dews of night. This is his hour for business; for the effects of the last night's dose are worn off, and the wretched victims who surround his table are eager to purchase the day's allowance of the slow, yet sure poison, which he offers, to tranquillize the wandering and disturbed brain of each. Alas! what a fearful group is here: youth, with the sunken eye and languid frame; old age, extreme old age, tottering on two bamboos, in ragged and neglected garments. Each palsied hand scatters down the few annas demanded in payment,

and then the purchaser, as if he dreaded the detecting eye of his happier and more resolute fellow-creature, skulks feebly back to his home, to enjoy an artificial state of existence, too dearly purchased by a premature and unlamented death, and by the destruction of every natural feeling implanted within him. This fearful species of intoxication is more generally practised among the inhabitants of British India than has been commonly supposed. The Mohammedans in particular are much addicted to its use; and much of the apathy and indifference observable in the native character may be attributed to this universal evil which would seem to be daily gaining ground among them. Few can be surprised that the Emperor of China fought hard to prevent the importation of opium into his dominions by the East India Company. Well might that monarch regard that potent drug as a curse to a nation which had already begun to suffer from its dangerous seduction, and which showed for it a decided taste. East-Indian opium, which is inferior to that of Turkey, is generally grown in Malwa, Bahar, and Benares, the great seat of Brahminical learning. It is stated, that, in Malwa, 360,000 pounds are annually produced, but it is often adulterated with cow dung, decayed leaves, and other filthy impurities. Morewood has calculated that 16,500 pounds annually find their way into Great Britain; but, of course, a large portion of this must be exported to the colonies, as it cannot be consumed as a medicine

in such quantities. A few facts, however, which I have been enabled to glean, show that opium-eating is on the increase in our own land, and the following startling account, lately communicated to me, may, perhaps, surprise some of my readers: "The practice of taking opium, laudanum, ether, and morphia, has increased, and is increasing, amongst the population of the fens in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, to a frightful extent. It prevails

amongst the aged, the infirm, and the young; and it is confined to neither sex-old men, old women, and young women, are equally its victims. It may safely be averred, that every second customer who visits the druggists, purchases opium, laudanum, or some opiate or narcotio. It is common to see the man or woman of twenty, thirty, or forty years of age, daily going for his or her sixpenny-worth of poison; and we have heard of yearly bills of £20 in one family, for opium and laudanum. town of Wisbeach alone, there are four hundred gallons of laudanum sold and swallowed every year: eight gallons of laudanum per week!

In the

After this revelation, I need not enlarge on East Indian opium-eaters; we will, therefore, turn our attention to the Arabian, who perambulates the streets of Bombay with his country wares and produce. The curious-shaped bottles strung round his neck, are filled with delicious rose-water, of which the Hindoos and Parsees are passionately fond, and which they sprinkle over their apartments and their