to dress fish, cut the vegetables, and grind spices. Widows do not eat anything touched by hands that have just dressed fish; so one takes care of vegetables, another of fish, a third grinds spices, and thus they pleasantly alleviate the labor which, if done by one, would be anything but easy, and of course would take more time. The Hindoo way of cooking things is really scientific; and it takes time and requires skill to do it. They do not think much of boiling, baking, frying; alleging, that only those who do not and cannot cook better feel satisfied with them. Let a Bengalee woman prepare some common leaves or flowers, and, if you eat them, you will hardly know what you are eating. Out of _one_ kind of fish and two or three of vegetables, she would prepare ten different dishes, perhaps, each differing from the other in regard to flavor, taste, and richness. In fact, in some grand feasts, the number of _Ban-juns_, or curries, as called by foreigners, exceeds forty! In the legendary accounts we read of _fifty-four_ Ban-juns used by the gods. As there is no fixed time for taking meals, the men dine when they are ready, either together or separate, and the women afterwards. If there be a female visitor in the family, the newly married daughter-in-law would not eat anything before her, and to meet at the table with _men_ is out of the question. My lady friends, in this country, have often asked me, “Who presides at the table there?” “Who waits upon the gentlemen?” etc. The mother or any other elderly female serves food to the men, but she does not partake of it with them. If there be only a young woman present to help her husband or his brother, she skilfully manages to look at the condition of the plates, and acts accordingly. Sometimes she gives them what they do not wish for, or more than they can eat. The married women do not sit close by the widows, lest they touch them or their plates; in either case the latter are required by the religious regulation of their order to stop eating. Very commonly the widows do not eat any food cooked by married women, even if they were their daughters. Immediately after the meal they go to the tank, which is always within a few rods’ distance from the kitchen, for the purpose of washing their hands, mouth, and feet. Almost all young women go into the water and wash the dress they had on while at dinner. Now they use _meeshie_, a kind of black powder to clean their teeth a second time, which, as a national peculiarity, are bright and smooth as pearls. This powder is a preparation of three or four materials; and, although it is black, leaves no darkness on the teeth. It has also a fine taste. The little children, unable to resist the temptation, eat the powder while cleaning their teeth with it.