‘The evidence of women of rank is taken by male relations, or by women properly authorized by the _Cazee_[10] for that purpose; but female testimony is inadmissible in cases of life and death. A woman of rank never suffers public punishment, for the parents or husbands, to prevent her disgrace, would themselves cause her death; the only kind of punishment, indeed, that a woman of this description seems liable to undergo. ----- Footnote 10: _Cazee_ is a judge, or justice. ----- ‘When they are indisposed, application is made to the doctor; who, upon enquiring into the symptoms, and examining certain QUACKISH _tokens_, prescribes accordingly; but, if the disorder be obstinate, the doctor is permitted to approach the _purdah_, (_i.e._ curtain, or screen,) and to put _his hand_ through a small aperture, purposely made, in order to feel the patient’s pulse. The lady’s hand or arm is never exposed to view, at least not to any male: on this occasion, the doctor’s hand is guided to the pulse by a female attendant. ‘Widows seldom take a second husband, though allowed to do so. Young widows are sometimes married to the husband’s brother, but even this is not frequent. Women of rank sometimes suckle their own children. In the choice of a wet-nurse, they are extremely particular, as all her family are by that means considered in the light of relations; a custom so far adhered to, as to preclude the possibility of intermarriage between the child thus suckled, and the children of its nurse. ‘Women in India never go to public baths. Each house in general is furnished with hot and cold baths. Where the former cannot be afforded, a boiler is always in readiness. Bathing is commanded as a necessary purification after most of the common occurrences of life. So much so, that most married ladies, under certain circumstances, are obliged to perform the ablution even in the middle of the night; and, as in these ceremonies if the parties are at all particular, it requires the hair to be wet, it affords occasion the next morning for their female friends to exercise their wit on the occasion. ‘The dresses of the single, and of the married, ladies, differ but little. The former never wear ornaments at the nose, _ungeeas_, or supporters to the breast, no _black ointment_[11] to fill up the interstices of the teeth, nor antimony to the eye-lids. It has been erroneously supposed, that a turban was peculiar to a spinster, from the similarity of the words _cheerna_ and _cheera_; the latter meaning a colored turban, which would be disgraceful for any modest woman to wear. The word _cheerna_ has a very different etymology, which will be sufficiently evident to any one acquainted with the Hindostanee.[12] ----- Footnote 11: The _missee_, before described. Footnote 12: The _hymen_ of anatomy. -----