Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The
'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears
stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that
appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news
of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few
minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo
samples."
Presently, as the Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window,
with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,--its boxwallahs, and its
pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen,
its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its
perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and
match-girls,--its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the
astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, if you have such
a thing as a sheep about you, will undertake to slaughter and skin
it with their teeth and devour it on the spot,--its conjure-wallahs,
who, for a few pice, will run sharp foils through each other's bodies
without for a moment disturbing either health or cheerfulness, or
will make mangoes grow under table-cloths, "all fair and proper,"
while Master waits,--as the Brahmin still dodges the shadow of the
Soodra, and the Soodra spits upon the footprint of the Pariah, the
Baboo returns to his chariot; the fat and solemn coachman gathers up
the reins, the burkarus assume their symmetrical attitudes on the box,
the syces bawl, and the socas jump.
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