‘From the birth of a child, until they give it the breast, it is fed with boiled cassia. On this occasion, most of the female relations attend, accompanied by a _midwife_.[35] This description of people are from the lowest _casts_. On the sixth day from the delivery, an entertainment is given in the _zenanah_; when the child’s head is shaved, and its nails cut; while money is distributed to the poor. It may be proper to observe, that the barber will not commence his operations before he has received handsome presents: sensible that he runs no risk in refusing, as they could not, even if so inclined, prevail on others of the tribe to officiate.—The barber, like several other trades in Hindostan, possesses a prescriptive right with particular families, whose custom he considers to be an inheritance, which cannot, without injustice, be taken from him. ----- Footnote 35: The _Chumars_, or shoemakers, are one of the lowest, and most degraded sects. Their wives are termed _chumynes_, and are supposed to inherit a perfect knowledge of midwifery, in which no other woman is employed. ----- ‘On the fortieth day, a grand entertainment is given, every one, according to their respective rank and consanguinity, making presents to the infant. In general, the children are suckled by hired nurses, but they never are sent out from the parents’ house. In the choice of a nurse they are extremely particular, as she becomes henceforward considered in the light of relative of the family;[36] she of course is never discharged, unless at her own request. The protection of her, and of her family, is of the greatest consideration; and when the child grows up, and has it in its power, he would be deemed an unnatural being, did he neglect to pension his nurse comfortably. Even the very slave-girls who assisted her are always treated by him with the utmost regard and attention. ----- Footnote 36: The child always calls this foster-brother by the name of ‘_dood-baiee_’, _i.e._ milk-brother. ----- ‘About the fourth month they allow of light food being given to the child; on which occasion a great entertainment is made, and repeated when a twelvemonth old; when the _string_ which is to mark his future years, receives the first knot. This custom seems to point out the origin of our metaphorical _thread_ of life. They never wean the child before eighteen months sometimes delaying it till two years and a half; on which occasion, great presents, and new dresses, are bestowed on the nurse, and an entertainment is given to the friends.