CHAPTER IV. DESCRIBES A RURAL SCENE, AND USHERS OUR HERO INTO THE WORLD. Young elms, with early force, in copses bow, Georgics. Ir was midday. The cruel sun, like a huge furnace, was sending forth hot flames all around. There was hardly any breeze, the broad leaves of the tall palmyra hung quite motionless; the cows were resting in the shade of trees, and were chewing the cud; and the birds were enjoying their mid-day siesta. At such a time, when all Nature seemed to be in a state of collapse, a solitary husbandman was seen ploughing a field on the eastern side of the village of Kánchanpur. In the previous evening there had been a shower, accompanied with a thunderstorm, and Mánik Sámanta was taking advantage of that circumstance, to prepare the soil for the early crop of Áus dhán, so-called from the fact of that sort of paddy ripening in less time than is taken by the Aman, or the winter paddy. As some of our readers may not have seen a Bengal plough, it is as well to describe it here; and we do not think the object is too low to be described, especially when we remember that it exercised in antiquity the genius of two such poets as Hesiod and Virgil. The Calcutta cockney, who glories in the Mahratta Ditch, despises the scenery of the country, and plumes himself upon the fact of his having never seen in his life the rice-plant, may well be addressed in the language of the poet of the "Seasons" : Nor ye who live In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride, And some, with whom compared your insect tribes Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm The plough, and, greatly independent, scorned What, then, is a Bengal plough? The Bengal plough is very much the same as the Greek and the Roman one, though it has not the mechanical adjustments of its English namesake. For the ilex oak of the Theban bard, and the elm of the Mantuan, the Bengali husbandman substitutes the bábul, or rather bábla, as the Vardhamána peasant calls it the Acacia Arabica of botanists. The wooden coulter is shod with iron, which serves the purpose of the "shining share." The plough-tail, which is inclined to the plough-share at an acute angle, is furnished with a short handle, by means of which the peasant guides the share and presses it into the earth. At the meeting-point of the share and tail is a hole, through which passes a beam, to the end of which is attached the yoke. When the machine is set a-going, it is kept tight by ropes attaching the yoke to the plough-tail. With such a plough Mánik is tilling the ground. But he is not making much head. Look at him. Floods of perspiration are pouring in copious streams down his swarthy cheeks as he holds the plough by both his hands and scolds the bullocks at the top of his voice. The bullocks do not apparently like the idea of working. Every now and then they stand stock-still. Mánik catches the tails of the oxen, twists them with all his might, and abuses the poor animals as if they were pickpockets. "You sálá" (wife's brother), "why don't you move? Don't you see it is getting late? Do you want a bambooing on your forehead, you brotherin-law of a brute? Seeing that threats prove unavailing, he has recourse to flattery, and addresses the team thus-"Get on, my treasure, my father, my child; get on a little further, and the whole will be over." But in vain. The jaded, thirsty, hungry brutes, who had been tugging at plough since early dawn, refuse to stir. Not far from this scene of alternate scolding and coaxing were observed two men under the shade of an asvatha tree situated near a pool of water. One of them was lying down on the grass, and the other, who seemed to be the older of the two, had his hookah in his hand. دو Let no one grudge the Bengal ráiyat his hookah It is his only solace amid his dreary toil. The English peasant has his beer and his spirits to refresh and cheer him up, but the Bengal husbandman drinks neither. Should the Legislature be so inconsiderate as to tax tobacco, the poor peasant will be deprived of half his pleasures, and life to him will be an insupportable burden. No ráiyat in Bengal ever goes to his field without the hookah in his hand and a quantity of tobacco wrapped up in a fold of his dhuti; and as lucifer matches are unknown to him, he keeps fire in a rope of straw made for the purpose. We may remark, for the benefit of the foreign reader, that the Bengal ráiyat never chews tobacco he invariably smokes it. He either raises the refreshing leaf in his own field, or buys it in a dry state in the village shop. He cuts each leaf into small pieces, pours into the mass a quantity of treacle and a little water, kneads it as the baker kneads his dough, and thus reduces it to a pulpy substance. It is then fit to be smoked. The machinery he uses for smoking is altogether of a primitive character. A hollow tube is inserted into a cocoa-nut shell through the opening at the top; a small hole is bored between the two eyes of the shell the shell is more than half filled with water; a small earthen bowl called kalki, filled with the prepared tobacco and fire, is put on the top of the hollow tube; to the hole between the eyes of the cocoa-nut is applied the mouth, which thus draws in the smoke through the tube, making that gurgling noise of the water inside the shell-bhroor, bhroor, bhroor-which to the overworked ráiyat is more refreshing than the music of the tánpurá or the viná. The whole smoking apparatus, which may last for years, need not cost more than a penny; and to a peasant who smokes hard half a farthing's worth of tobacco is sufficient for twenty-four hours. And what infinite comfort and solace does this simple and inexpensive instrument afford to the husbandman! It dries up the sweat of his brow, pours vigour into his muscles, takes away from him all sense of languor, restores lustre to his sunken eyes, recruits his fading energies, and alleviates the pains of his toilsome life. "What a glorious creature," said the Homer of English novelists, "was he who first discovered the use of tobacco! The industrious retires from business; the voluptuous from pleasure; the lover from a cruel mistress; the husband from a cursed wife; and I from all the world to my pipe." Let Government impose any tax it likes-income tax, license tax, succession tax, salt tax, feast tax, or fast tax, but let it have a care that it does not tax that precious weed, which is the Bengal ráiyat's balm of Gileadhis only solace amid the privations of his wretched life. But to return: when the older of the two men, sitting and smoking under the tree, saw in what a plight Mánik and his bullocks were, he bawled out, “Ho, Mánik! you had better loosen the oxen, they are tired; and you yourself come and rest here." The moment the bullocks were loosened from the plough, they rushed towards the pool, and putting their fore feet into the water, took a long draught. Mánik himself, with the plough on his shoulders came to the tree, and began smoking with his companions. The eldest of the party said to the other two, "Brothers, let us all bathe and get ready for bhát (boiled rice), as Málati must soon be here." Mánik replied, "Very well, Gayárám," addressing the youngest of the three, "you had better rub your body with oil." Gayárám replied, "Let brother Badan begin." I need scarcely tell the reader that these three persons were brothers. The eldest, Badan, who was |