THE HOME AND COLONIAL LIBRARY. Published Monthly, Price 2_s._ 6_d._, or alternate Months, Price 6_s._ in cloth, MURRAY'S HOME AND COLONIAL LIBRARY. CONSISTING OF ORIGINAL WORKS AND REPRINTS OF POPULAR PUBLICATIONS, AT THE LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE. Volumes already Published. 1. _Borrow's Bible in Spain._ 2-3. _Heber's Journals in India._ 4. _Irby and Mangles' Travels--Siege of Gibraltar._ 5. _Hay's Morocco--Letters from the Baltic._ 6. _The Amber Witch--Cromwell and Bunyan._ 7. _New South Wales--Barrow's Life of Drake._ 8. _Father Ripa's Memoirs--Lewis's West Indies._ 9. _Malcolm's Sketches of Persia._ 10. _French in Algiers--Fall of the Jesuits._ 11. _Bracebridge Hall. By Washington Irving._ 12. _Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist._ 13. _Lord Mahon's Life of Condé._ 14. _Borrow's Gypsies of Spain._ 15. _Melville's Typee, or the Marquesas._ 16. _Livonian Tales--Memoirs of a Missionary._ 17. _Sale's Brigade--Letters from Madras._ 18. _St. John's Wild Sports of the Highlands._ 19. _Head's Pampas--Sieges of Vienna by the Turks._ 20. _Ford's Gatherings from Spain._ 21. _Sketches of German Life._ 22. _Melville's Omoo; or The South Seas._ 23. _Gleig's Battle of Waterloo._ 24. _The River Amazon--Wayside Cross._ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF INDIA. Illustrated with Numerous Anecdotes. BY THE REV. CHARLES ACLAND, LATE CHAPLAIN AT POOREE, CUTTACK, AND MIDNAPORE. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1847. London: Printed by W. CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street. PREFACE. The author of the present work was a clergyman, who, along with his wife, quitted England about the beginning of the year 1842, leaving behind him several young children, to whom, as appears from the letters he constantly addressed to them, he was most affectionately attached. They left the country full of hope that they should all be reunited at some future period; but, before he had been three years exposed to the climate of India, he fell a victim to it. It is somewhat melancholy to find him at the outset rejoicing in the very circumstance which in some measure perhaps occasioned his death. The first destination selected for him was little in accordance with his own taste; and when it subsequently was altered from Assam to Cuttack, he expresses himself delighted with the change, though the first-named province was much more remarkable for its healthfulness than that to which he at length proceeded.