While undergoing the throes of nature, the exhausted spirit of the expectant mother is buoyed up by the fond hope of having a _male_ child, which, in the estimation of a Hindoo female, is worth a world of suffering. In the event of the offspring turning out a female, her friends try to encourage her for the moment by their assurance that the child born is a male, and a lovely and sweet child, ushered into the world under the peculiar auspices of the goddess Shasthi. Such assurances serve very much to keep up her spirit for the time being, but when she is brought to her senses and does not hear the sound of a conch[9] her delusion is removed, sorrow and disappointment take the place of joy and excitement, her buoyant spirit collapses and a strong reaction sets in. Thus in a moment, a grace is converted into a gorgon, a beauty into a monstrosity, an angel into a fiend. She curses the day, she curses her fate. But "such is the make and mechanism of human nature" that she soon resigns herself to the wise dispensations of an overruling Providence. She gradually feels a strong affection for the female child and rears it with all the care and tenderness of a mother; she caresses and fondles it as if it were a boy, and her affection grows warmer as the child grows. This is natural and inevitable. At the birth of a male child, the occurrence is immediately announced by _sanka dhani_ (sound of a conch); musicians without being sent for, come and play the _tom tom_; the family barber bears the happy tidings to all the nearest relatives, and he is rewarded with presents of money and cloths. Oil, sweetmeats, fishes, curdled milk, and other things, are presented to the relatives and neighbours, who, in return, offer their congratulations. A rich Hindoo, though he studies practical domestic economy very carefully, is, however, apt to loosen his purse string at the birth of a son and heir. The mother forgetting her trouble and agony implores _Bidhata_[10] for the longevity of the child. She cheerfully suckles it and her heart swells with joy every time she looks at its face. On the second day after delivery, she gets a little sago and _cheeray vajah_ (a sort of parched rice). On the third day the same diet, with the addition of a single grain of boiled rice, and a little fried potatoe or _pull bull_, that she may use those things afterwards with safety. On the fifth day, if everything is right, the room is washed and she is allowed to come out of it for a short time; a little boiled rice and _moong dhall_ is her diet that day.