As soon as a child comes into the world, it is not bound up, as among us, in clothes and bandages, but is suffered to have the free use of its limbs and is laid, quite naked, on a mat. After it has been repeatedly washed with cold water, the mother gives it the breast. Every female Indian, whatever be her condition, would consider it as a great cruelty to neglect this duty of nature, and to commit her child to the care of a nurse, from whom, as unfortunately is too often the case in other countries, it might imbibe, at the same time with her milk, her shameful passions, or her diseases[158]. In India, therefore, there is no reason to apprehend that a nobleman will be depraved by his nurse, and converted into a clown; for every child receives the same education that was given to his father, and to every member of the same cast. When a woman is delivered, her husband, or lover, must acquaint the magistrate or overseer of his cast, that the new-born child may be added to the list of those persons who compose that cast. This overseer, called _Giàdi Egiamàn_, is bound by the nature of his office to transmit to the king an accurate account of the number and qualities of the persons under his inspection. By this list the king is enabled to discover, on the first view, the extent of his power; how many vassals he has, and the amount of the tribute which he can demand from them. This political establishment of the Indian princes was usual in the oldest periods, and occurs in Strabo. It was equally beneficial as that law of Servius Tullius at Rome, which obliged every father of a family, as often as he had a child born, to bring a piece of money to the temple of Lucina. The Brahmans are accustomed also to mark, with equal care, in their pagodas or temples, the birth-day of every child. In each of these there is always a Brahman, if not two, paid by the overseer of the temple, whose business expressly is to keep a register of the births, marriages and deaths, and also of every interesting event that concerns the class to which they belong. These _Vàriar_, or calculators, are therefore enabled to give such an accurate and minute account of the family, connexions, life and condition of every person in the neighbouring district, as is truly astonishing. This knowledge is acquired, indeed, in the most natural manner; but it has so much the appearance of something supernatural, that persons of weak minds are at a loss how to account for it. When a father has a child born, he sends for one of these astrologers, who pretend to understand the twenty-eight houses of the planets, through which the moon passes every month. The astrologer, having learned the moment of the child’s birth, makes it the ground of his calculations to discover the planet and constellation under which it was born, and, according to the result, he foretels the circumstances of its future life, of rather its destiny. This destiny, which they call _Giàdaga_, is written by the god Brahma on