A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of IndiaAcland, Charles
History
A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of India
Acland, Charles
India -- Description and travel; India -- Social life and customs
I have a flower and kitchen garden, fowl-house and place for goats,
kitchen, stable, cowhouse, and a banyan-tree. The pathways through
the grass are of fine gravel, and the hedges are composed almost
entirely of aloes and cactuses, mixed with a very sweet-smelling
flowering shrub, and here and there a bamboo, which is a most
beautiful tree, resembling a very tall weeping-willow. The
sensitive-plant grows wild about the compound, and bears a very pink
flower resembling that of the red cloves.
The banyan-tree is abundant here. Each branch projects stalks
downwards, which take root in the earth, and after a few years one
tree resembles a cluster, and covers a large space of ground. I have
several aloes in my garden, which are just flowering. They have
thrown up a straight stalk about twenty feet high. A large cactus is
now in bloom. It is about ten feet high, and each stem or leaf is
thicker round than my leg. This kind bears a very beautiful large
white flower, which opens only at night. In my kitchen-garden are the
mango, the plantain, Indian corn, pine-apple trees, and many others.
Carpets are not used here, but the floors are covered instead
with India matting. In each room is a punkah, which I have before
described.
We procure water for drinking from a large tank or pond; and as we
cannot purchase meat, I have provided myself with thirty-five ducks,
sixty fowls, four goats, and three kids, which last are almost ready
to eat; the goats we shall keep for their milk. The judge made me a
present of a beautiful fawn of the spotted deer, which is becoming
very tame. I am just going to join a mutton-club. Four persons enter
into partnership, and agree to keep a small flock of sheep; one of
which is killed twice a week, and then each partner is provided with
a quarter of mutton, and each in turn has the liver, heart, and head.
A gentleman yesterday sent me four guinea-fowls, and another has
promised me six pigeons as soon as I have a place to keep them in.
[Sidenote: INSECTS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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