Some of these groves had already begun to yield fruit, and all had been _married_. Among the Hindoos, neither the man who plants a grove, nor his wife, can taste of the fruit till he has _married_ one of the mango-trees to some other tree (commonly the tamarind-tree) that grows near it in the same grove. The proprietor of one of these groves that stands between the cantonment and the town, old Barjôr Singh, had spent so much in planting and watering the grove, and building walls and wells of _pucka_[2] masonry, that he could not afford to defray the expense of the marriage ceremonies till one of the trees, which was older than the rest when planted, began to bear fruit in 1833, and poor old Barjôr Singh and his wife were in great distress that they dared not taste of the fruit whose flavour was so much prized by their children. They began to think that they had neglected a serious duty, and might, in consequence, be taken off before another season could come round. They therefore sold all their silver and gold ornaments, and borrowed all they could; and before the next season the grove was married with all due pomp and ceremony, to the great delight of the old pair, who tasted of the fruit in June 1834. The larger the number of the Brahmans that are fed on the occasion of the marriage, the greater the glory of the proprietor of the grove; and when I asked old Barjôr Singh, during my visit to his grove, how many he had feasted, he said, with a heavy sigh, that he had been able to feast only one hundred and fifty. He showed me the mango-tree which had acted the part of the bridegroom on the occasion, but the bride had disappeared from his side. 'And where is the bride, the tamarind?' 'The only tamarind I had in the grove died', said the old man, 'before we could bring about the wedding; and I was obliged to get a jasmine for a wife for my mango. I planted it here, so that we might, as required, cover both bride and bridegroom under one canopy during the ceremonies; but, after the marriage was over, the gardener neglected her, and she pined away and died.' 'And what made you prefer the jasmine to all other trees after the tamarind?' 'Because it is the most celebrated of all trees, save the rose.' 'And why not have chosen the rose for a wife?' 'Because no one ever heard of marriage between the rose and the mango; while they [_sic_] take place every day between the mango and the _chambêlî_ (jasmine).'[3] After returning from the groves, I had a visit after breakfast from a learned Muhammadan, now guardian to the young Râjâ of Uchahara,[4] who resides part of his time at Jubbulpore. I mentioned my visit to the groves and the curious notion of the Hindoos regarding the necessity of marrying them; and he told me that, among Hindoos, the man who went to the expense of making a tank dared not drink of its waters till he had married his tank to some banana-tree, planted on the bank for the purpose.[5]