each other in geography, history, grammar, &c. Some dull and less active boys sit apart on the cushions with the pretence of headache or something else. Sometimes the boys of the bride’s village disturb the others very much. I know of many instances in which they cut the best cashmere shawls to pieces, threw fire on them with a pretended carelessness, and painted the face of some poor dull boy with ink, who might happen to sleep at that time. Again, the “twelve friends” sometimes practice much violence if they do not get the exact sum of money they demand. I, unfortunately, once went to attend the wedding of our priest’s son, in a town nearly twenty miles north of Calcutta. The party above mentioned proved so troublesome that we were obliged to fly by the back door in the night, through bamboo forests, tired, hungry, and afraid lest they should overtake us, and we be handled roughly. Now the appointed time comes; the bridegroom is conducted into the inner department of the house, where no persons are allowed to enter, except his father, priest, and the barber. As he passes through a narrow entry, the young women throw at him a copious shower of pastry made of raw rice and molasses. The place for the marriage ceremony is furnished thus: two painted seats of board for the bridegroom and the bride,--some other aushuns, small pieces of carpet, for the priests and the parents,--a set of all sorts of household furniture used by them,--and a small throne, containing some images of their gods. The service is conducted in the Sanscrith language, which none but the priests can understand. After the preliminary service the young couple look at each other for the first time, which is called _Shooblo dirstu_, good interview. This good interview, or rather first interview, relieves the young man from his doubts and fears in regard to the bride, and she, too, feels a like anxiety. Her face is covered with a veil, and she cannot see her husband,--she only knows that she is going to marry some one, and her definite knowledge of him ends with this fact. They require the bridegroom to stand on a piece of painted board, then the bride is brought, sitting on a similar seat and supported by two or four men, as the case requires. By them she is raised in the air, and as the bridegroom looks eagerly at her, the face being then unveiled, some young women give blows on his back, sides, and shoulders. Receiving the first-expected blow from the gentler sex, he turns to the direction from whence it comes, and others favor him with more from various quarters. He, no doubt, feels very badly, and greatly confused, and if he be a stout and grown-up young man he bears these blows with manly fortitude, and if not, he cries a little. I have heard of some boys, who, unable to bear these invasions, looking up, cried aloud, “Ma! I shall not marry.” They then exchange two flower garlands, which can be done in Bengal all the year round. The priest