The Hindoos are, in general, very sober, and abstain from all animal food. The Brahmins, in particular, never eat any thing that has had the breath of life: _curees_ of vegetables are their common diet; the chief ingredients of which are turmeric, spices, and the pulp of the cocoa-nut. They esteem milk the purest food; and venerate the cow almost as a divinity. In manners, they are effeminate, luxurious, and taught to affect a grave deportment. This initiates them early in the arts of dissimulation; so that they can caress those whom they hate, and even behave with kindness to those whom they intend to murder[20]. The common salutation is, by lifting one or both hands to the head, according to the quality of the person saluted; but no person salutes with the left hand singly. [20] We had several of our regiment who attached themselves to black women, by whom they were poisoned; one, in particular, suffered under a long lingering illness. This young man was the Paymaster's clerk, who had taken one of these women (who had broken her caste) and kept her for a considerable time, but, happening to have some words with her one day, he threatened to put her away; and she, taking it for granted that he would be as good as his word, gave him a dose of poison; but afterwards lived with him for some time, with all the apparent affection that a wife should show for a husband; nor did she leave him until a suspicion arose that she was the person who had done the wicked deed. This young man died; and his body having been opened by the surgeon, he was found to have been poisoned. On visiting amongst friends, the master of the house never rises to receive his visitor, but requests him to come and sit down beside him on the carpet or floor; and the betle-nut-box is presented to him, as we do our snuff-boxes. This betle-nut is used in the same manner as we do tobacco; and both the men and the women take it indiscriminately. Dancing girls are generally engaged at public entertainments to amuse the company. They adorn their necks with carcanets, their arms with bracelets, and their ankles with small gold or silver chains. The dance of these women is a cadenced movement, performed to the sound of a drum, (called a tum-tum,) which a person beats upon with his fingers, and accompanies with a song, that, to a person possessed of any taste, is truly barbarous. The mode of beating time is with a small bell, or cymbal, which the dancing-master holds in his hand. This bell, or cymbal, he beats against the edge of another of the same kind, which produces a brisk vibrating sound, which animates the dancers, and gives precision to their movements. They, however, display no elegant attitudes, but are full of gesture; and the motion of their arms seems to occupy their whole attention.