and, from our since extended control over Central and Western India, it may be hoped for ever. A pleasant writer has described the Pindarra in the following familiar manner:-"The Pindarra was a very devil-may-care sort of a personage in practice, though wanting in that dash and romantic attribution, which render the brigand of Europe so truly and justly interesting to young ladies, and so very terrific and coollythrough-the-head-shooting to imaginative young gentlemen. The Pindarra was a coarse, unsentimental ruffian, whom a slight show of opposition always caused to keep his distance; but as his fierceness of deportment and apparent fury generally put the villagers into as great a fright as he would otherwise have been in himself, he contrived, for many years, anterior to 1816, to have every thing so much his own way, that he had a thorough notion of his invincibility, and the smallest Pindarra believed himself a Rustum, at the lowest computation. Neither sex nor age spared he, if he thought that by so doing he would miss a single rupee or the thinnest silver ornament, and he would tear away ear and all, to secure the multitudinous ear-rings, if there was any inconvenient struggling, or if other circumstances induced him to be in a hurry. But in the generality of cases he preferred inflicting torture to dealing immediate death; for, as dead men tell no tales, while tortured ones tell almost any thing they are asked to tell, the Pindarra did not choose that the secret of the hidden treasure should be buried in the owner's grave. Wherefore, when a gentleman villager-one evidently well to do in the world-was suspected of having treasure elsewhere than about his ill-used person, he had spear points, pincers, and similar pleasant applications, put to his natural sensibility, on the principle, perhaps, of Dousterswivel's divining rod; but the panacea was a heap of

fine fresh chillies, pounded and put into a tobra (horse's nose-bag), and the same tied over the recusant's face, inasmuch that he had to inhale that, or go without, which latter procedure, if, on the voluntary principle, was next door to suicide. In this manner did the Pindarra horde, numbering from thirty to fifty thousand men, lay all India under annual contribution for a series of years; robbing, slaying, and devastating, with virtual impunity; and even supported by the Mahratta princes of the time, who shared in the general plunder, and regularly treated with the bandit chieftains. But the Marquis of Hastings put an extinguisher on them at last, and thousands of villages now stand in safety which formerly used to be sacked or harried, when the nullahs (minor rivers) became fordable, after the rains, with greater regularity than the border countries of Britain in the days of Scott's idolatry. The horse of the Pindarra was of the ragged order to look at, but he had infinite pluck, and would go his forty or fifty miles at a stretch, as a thing to which he was by no means unaccustomed. He had balls given to him, in which opium was an ingredient, and these used to stimulate him to first-rate exertion, especially if the Company's cavalry were hanging on his rear!"

PISH PASH, an Indian dish; weak broth thickened with rice, and a fowl pulled to pieces.

PODAR, a money-teller, or changer. POINT DE GALLE, generally called

Galle (Gal-la in the Cingalese language), a port and town in the island of Ceylon, seventy-two miles south of Colombo, in Lat. 6 deg. 1 min. N., and Long. 80 deg. 20 min. E. The fort is about a mile in circumference. The houses in general are good and convenient; and though some of the principal streets are narrow and hot, it is reputed, upon the whole, one of the most healthy and agreeable stations

in the island. There is a Dutch church, in which divine service is performed in Portuguese by a government proponent. Besides this, there is a chapel belonging to the Wesleyan missionaries, and a Mahomedan mosque. The Pettah, which is separated from the fort by the esplanade, is extensive, and contains several good houses, occupied chiefly by government servants. The steamers plying between Bengal, Madras, and the Red Sea, coal here. POITA, or ZENNAAR, the sacred thread of the Hindoos. Various ceremonies are attendant upon Hindoo boys between infancy and the age of eight years. After that age, and before a boy is fifteen, it is imperative upon him to receive the poita, zennaar, or sacred thread. The sacred thread must be made by a | Brahmun. It consists of three strings, each ninety-six hands (fortyeight yards), which are twisted together; it is then folded into three, and again twisted; these are a second time folded into the same number, and tied at each end in knots. It is worn over the left shoulder (next the skin, extending half-way down the right thigh), by the Brahmuns, Kettries, and Vaisya castes. The first are usually invested with it at eight years of age, the second at eleven, and the Vaisyas at twelve. The period may, from especial causes, be deferred; but it is indispensable that it should be received, or the parties omitting it become outcasts. The Hindoos of the Sudra caste do not receive the poita. The ceremony is considered as the second birth of the Hindoo. A boy cannot be married till he has received the poita. POLIGAR, head of a village district. Military chieftain in the peninsula, similar to a hill zemindar in the Northern Circars, the chief of a Pollum (q. v.)

POLLUM, in the peninsula of India, means a district held by a Poligar (q. v.); also a town. POLONGA, or TIC POLONGA, a

venomous serpent inhabiting the island of Ceylon. Its bite destroys life in a few minutes. PONCH-GHUR (punch-house), the name given by the natives of the lower orders of Indians to an hotel. Punch must have been a common drink with the early Portuguese settlers or visitors, for we find it in use, to signify an hotel or publichouse, at each of the presidencies. PONDICHERRY (PHOOL-CHEREE, or POODOO-CHEREE), a city in India, in the province of Central or Middle Carnatic, situated on the coast, about ninety miles south from Madras. It is a handsome, well-built city, belonging to the French, and was once the most splendid European settlement in India, though now much decayed. POODOOCOTTA, a town in India, in the province of Southern Carnatic, the capital of the district of Tondiman's country, situated in Lat. 10 deg. 28 min. N., Long. 78 deg. 58 min. E., is a remarkably clean, wellbuilt town, of modern erection. POOJA, Hindoo worship. POONA, a city in India, in the province of Bejapore, situated about thirty miles to the eastward of the Western Ghauts, or Mountains, in Lat. 18 deg. 30 min. N., Long. 74 deg. 2 min. E. It stands on an extensive open plain, and is considered one of the best-built native cities in Hindostan. The small rivers Moota and Moola unite at this place, and form the Moota Moola, which flows into the river Beema; and it is thus possible, during the rainy season, to effect a journey by water in a light canoe, from within seventy-five miles of the west coast of India to the Bay of Bengal.. Under the Peishwa's government, Poona was the capital of the western Mahratta empire, and it was here that the chiefs were accustomed to assemble every year with their followers for the celebration of the Dusseera, before setting out upon their plundering excursions into the neigh

bouring countries.

It is now the principal English military station of the province, and contains about 100,000 inhabitants.

POONAS, or POONASS FUSSIL, cotton harvest. Small grain harvest in the Northern Circars. POONYUM PATAM, literally, a fair or equitable pottah, or written engagement. A lease where the rent and interest of the sum advanced by the Indian tenant to the landlord seem security for each other. POORAH, an Assamese word, signifying a piece of land containing 52,900 square feet, and is nearly equivalent to a Scotch acre, or three and a half Bengal beegahs. POORANICK, a Hindoo lecturer, by caste a Brahmun. These people live by reading to the people the "Pooruns," which are written in the Sanscrit and Pracrit (ancient and modern) languages, and explaining to the hearers in the latter, the former language being hardly understood by unlettered Hindoos. After reading the "Pooruns" they collect money, fruits, and sweetmeats, and depart. POOROOPA, enaums, or grants of land, paying a fixed money rent or tribute in the Dindigul and Tinnevelly provinces. POPULZYES, a clan of the Dooranee tribe of Afghans. POREBUNDER, a town in India, in the province of Guzerat, on the south-western coast of the peninsula, in Lat. 21 deg. 39 min. N., Long. 69 deg. 45 min. E., is large and populous, and one of the principal trading ports of Guzerat. POSHAUK, a breast-plate worn by the Mahrattas and Rajpoots in former times.

POTAIL, or PATEL, headman of an Indian village, who collects the rents from the other ryots therein, and has the general superintendence of its concerns. The same person who in Bengalis called Mocuddim, and Mundul (q. v.)

POTTAH, a lease granted in India to the cultivators on the part of go

vernment, either written on paper, or engraved with a style on the leaf of the fan palmira tree, by Europeans called cadjan.

PRACRIT, modern Hindostanee. PRAHU, or PROW, a small vessel used to navigate the Malayan Archipelago.

PRASHARIES, strolling players in Hindostan.

war.

PREM SAGOR, a Hindostanee legend, one of the books usually put into the hands of students of the language. Amid a vast deal of fable and exaggeration, there is a strong vein of probability running through this legend, which seems to be founded upon historical facts, and is, perhaps, as true as the Trojan The assertion that there were rival kings, and empires so near to each other as Muthura and Delhi; that the Chanderee Raja was a powerful prince, Benares an independent kingdom; and that the defeated Yudoobunsees retired to a fortified city, in a circumscribed territory, allows the truth to peep out, and proves that this is nothing more than a history of wars between petty tribes, inhabiting tracts, which, in all probability, were far less populous than at this time, being in a great measure covered with the extensive forests, which are herein described as such interminable jungles. Sir Walter Scott has observed, that the eras by which the vulgar, in remote ages, compute time, have always reference to some period of fear and tribulation, and they date by a tempest, a conflagration, or a burst of civil commotion. Accordingly, that Krishn was a cunning adventurer, who, with the help of his brother's strength and valour, took advantage of the unpopularity of the ferocious Kunsa, to dethrone the reigning monarch of Muthura, and carve out a principality for him self, seems to be near the truth; and it is not without many a parallel in the more authentic and more modern histories of all nations. The times

were out of joint, as appears from the great war of the Kooroos and Pandoos: these families, originally, it is supposed, from Kashmeer, or perhaps still farther north, from Tartary, and so far strangers and conquerors in the land, are almost prototypes of what subsequently occurred among the Mahomedans, whose downfall, as the ruling dynasty paramount of Hindostan, was precipitated by their intestine divisions; and the contests between Moghul and Puthan, which have ultimately terminated in the subversion of almost all Moosulman rule. But, if the Prem Sagor be interesting as shadowing forth, however dimly, the ancient and obscured chronicles of past ages, it is not less so when viewed as a picture of the manners of Eld in the East, which, on examination will prove that there existed a very great similarity to those of the better known nations of very ancient times. In the Prem Sagor, we meet with descriptions of customs and weapons not altogether obsolete at this day, though superseded among those with whom we are most familiar, by others of more modern date: yet sometimes, among the retainers of the more rude and isolated chieftains, may be seen arms of the ancient time; and perhaps among the fastnesses of Chanderee and other little-visited fortalices of the Deccan, may be deposited panoply like that which furnished forth the legions of Yoodhishthira and Duryodhuna, 3000 or, at the lowest computation, 1400 years before our era; which last is a century prior to Pope's date of the Siege of Troy. The greater facility for acquiring Persian, added to the circumstance of few Hindoo books being accessible, save under the difficult and mysterious veil of Sanscrit, has led most military men in India to pursue the former literature; and, as a consequence, their knowledge of the ancient state of India is confined to a smattering of the reigns of half a

dozen of the more prominent Moosulman emperors of Delhi, the oldest of whom is scarce of 800 years standing, identical with the period of our own Norman conquest; while the whole of the purely Hindostanee history is a sealed book to the very men whose lives are passed among the posterity of the Sun and Moon, and the, to this day, sectaries of Rama and Krishna. The predilection for Persian literature may also be ascribed to our being early imbued with Moosulman fragments and chronicles, through Spain, the Crusades, and Turkey; from our boyish delight in the Arabian Nights (borrowed, possibly, from these very Hindoos), and from tales of genii and fairies, David and Solomon, with whom we are familiar from our very earliest youth: but it cannot be doubted that this preference has much contributed to keep us in ignorance of the current language of Hindostan Proper, which, in many districts, is still little adulterated by admixture of Persian words. The histories of India, too, usually placed in the hands of destined sojourners in the land, are ill-adapted to encourage them to study the language of the Hindoos: Mill, more especially, seems to assume rather the tone of a controversialist, desirous of throwing odium and ridicule upon that nation, than of a faithful and philosophical historian. He ridicules their pretended antiquity, which, however, on comparison with our own received accounts, brings the commencement of their Cali yoog to within 700 years of the Flood, while he might charitably conclude the legends of the three former eras to be but exaggerations, monstrous, 'tis true, of traditions respecting the antediluvians, whose stature and longevity are, in our own scriptures, shown to have been far above the present standard. Deeply imbued with western lore, most men of literary habits resorting to India have

been generally incapacitated for an impartial judgment of the pretensions of the East: and many, being of the clerical profession, have added religious disgust to other antipathies. Thus, Mr. Ward, in his excellent work, expressing his horror at the bloody sacrifices of Kalee, describes one by the Rajah of Burdwan, when he immolated some hundreds of goats and other animals, the whole temple being one slaughterhouse, slippery with gore and filth, and resounding with the cries of dying victims: forgetting that such things are inseparable from the slaying of beasts, and must have equally occurred in the hecatombs of Greece and the memorable dedication of the Temple of Solomon, when 20,000 oxen and 100,000 sheep bled before the altar. The Prem Sagor, as a text-book, should be in the hands of every officer of the Indian army who has hope and energy to pant for and obtain distinction. A diligent study of its pages may avail to enable military men gradually to wean the minds of those natives with whom they come in contact from a debasing superstition on many points, which are, in reality, mere history, disguised and exaggerated by priestcraft and cunning. It has been said that the natives of India, as a body, are more intimately acquainted with the wars of the Kooroos and Pandoos, &c., than with the modern victories of the last century. These traditions, therefore, so difficult to eradicate, may, by a more diffused knowledge of them among Europeans generally, give us weapons to combat the erring faith built upon them: treated as mere histories of human beings, proved to be impious impossibilities as predicated of divine beings, they will find their own level as legends of old; and, no longer pernicious to the religious feelings, or degrading to the understandings of men, they may be gradually stripped of their absurdities and indelicacy, and form the groundwork of sen

sible chronicles of Hindostan, incentive of honest pride and patriotism in her regenerated and disabused children, and a monument of the zeal and philanthropy of her enlightened rulers. The strong affinity of some circumstances of Krishna's early history to those of our Saviour's, such as the massacre of the innocents, the flight, &c., cannot fail to strike the student, and, together with the similarity of the names Krishna and Kristos, are undoubtedly singular coincidences. Mr. Colebroke has devoted much time and research to the elucidation of this mystery, which, it seems probable, may have arisen from vague accounts of the Messiah's birth penetrating to India, and being rudely incorporated with the legend of Krishna, whose name, however, has no real affinity with Kristos, being merely an epithet, signifying "black," his real name being Kunhya. However this may be, it cannot affect the historical part of the Prem Sagor, which, as referring to events better known, and more prominent than the early childhood of the hero, is probably more consistent with facts in the main: since, though it would be easy to introduce foreign incidents into the obscurer years of the young conqueror, there must have been less facility in tampering with matters which were familiar traditions among a people so tenacious of ancestry as the Hindoos, and in which the ancestors of many then living must have been implicated. PRIT'HIVI. Prithivi, the goddess (in Hindoo mythology) of the earth, is a form of Lakshmi, or of Parvati. Her husband is Prit'hu, produced in strict accordance with mythological extravagance, by churning the right arm of a deceased tyrant who had died without issue, that he might have a posthumous son, who is represented as a form of Vishnu. This primitive couple appear to have quarrelled in a very primitive manner; that is, the mother of nature