Destitute of mental pursuits, the martial Rajput is often slothful or attached to sensual pleasures, and when roused, reckless on what he may wreak a fit of energy. Yet when order and discipline prevail in a wealthy chieftainship, there is much of that patriarchal mode of life, with its amusements, alike suited to the Rajput, the Getae of the Jihun, or Scandinavian. =Omens, Auguries.=—Divination by lots, auguries, and omens by flights of birds, as practised by the Getic nations described by Herodotus, and amongst the Germans by Tacitus, will be found amongst the Rajputs, from whose works[2.6.70] on this subject might have been supplied the whole of the Augurs and Aruspices, German or Roman. =Love of Strong Drink.=—Love of liquor, and indulgence in it to excess, were deep-rooted in the Scandinavian Asi and German tribes, and in which they showed their Getic origin; nor is the Rajput behind his brethren either of Scythia or Europe. It is the free use of this and similar indulgences, prohibited by ordinances which govern the ordinary Hindu, that first induced me to believe that these warlike races were little indebted to India. The Rajput welcomes his guest with the _munawwar piyala_, or ‘cup of request,’ in which they drown ancient enmities. The heroes of Odin never relished a cup of mead more than the Rajput his _madhu_;[2.6.71] and the bards of Scandinavia and Rajwara are alike eloquent in the praise of the bowl, on which the Bardai exhausts every metaphor, and calls it ambrosial, immortal.[2.6.72] “The bard, as he sipped the ambrosia, in which sparkled the ruby seed of the pomegranate, rehearsed the glory of the race of the fearless.[2.6.73] May the king live for ever, alike bounteous in gifts to the bard and the foe!” Even in the heaven of Indra, the Hindu warrior’s paradise, akin to Valhalla [72], the Rajput has his cup, which is served by the Apsaras, the twin sister of the celestial Hebe of Scania. “I shall quaff full goblets amongst the gods,” says the dying Getic warrior;[2.6.74] “I die laughing”: sentiments which would be appreciated by a Rajput. A Rajput inebriated is a rare sight: but a more destructive and recent vice has usurped much of the honours of the ‘invitation cup,’ which has been degraded from the pure ‘flower’[2.6.75] to an infusion of the poppy, destructive of every quality. Of this pernicious habit we may use the words which the historian of German manners applies to the tribes of the Weser and Elbe, in respect to their love of strong drink: “Indulge it, and you need not employ the terror of your arms; their own vices will subdue them.” The cup of the Scandinavian worshippers of Thor, the god of battle, was a human skull, that of the foe, in which they showed their thirst of blood; also borrowed from the chief of the Hindu Triad, Hara, the god of battle, who leads his heroes in the ‘red field of slaughter’ with the _khopra_[2.6.76] in his hand, with which he gorges on the blood of the slain.