these nice judges have ascertained there is no more butter remaining in the milk.  When the butter is to be sold, it is beaten up into round balls out of the water.  When ghee is intended to be made, the butter is simmered over a slow fire for a given time, and poured into the ghee pot, which perhaps may contain the produce of the week before they convey it to the market for sale; in this state the greasy substance will keep good for months, but in its natural state, as butter, the second day it is offensive to have it in the room, much less to be used as an article of food.

’Burruff wallah’[50] (The man with ice).—­The ice is usually carried about in the evening, and considered a great indulgence by the Natives.  The ice-men bring round both iced creams, and sherbet ices, in many varieties; some flavoured with oranges, pomegranates, pine-apple, rose-water, &c.

They can produce ices at any season, by saltpetre, which is here abundant and procured at a small price; but strange as it may appear, considering the climate, we have regular collections of ice made in January, in most of the stations in the Upper Provinces, generally under the superintendence of an English gentleman, who condescends to be the comptroller.  The expenses are paid by subscribers, who, according to the value of their subscription, are entitled to a given quantity of ice, to be conveyed by each person’s servant from the deposit an hour before day-break, in baskets made for the purpose well wadded with cotton and woollen blankets; conveyed home, the basket is placed where neither air nor light can intrude.  Zinc bottles, filled with pure water, are placed round the ice in the basket, and the water is thus cooled for the day’s supply, an indulgence of great value to the sojourners in the East.

The method of collecting ice is tedious and laborious, but where labour is cheap and the hands plenty the attempt has always been repaid by the advantages.  As the sun declines, the labourers commence their work; flat earthen platters are laid out, in exposed situations, in square departments, upon dried sugar-cane leaves very lightly spread, that the frosty air may pass inside the platters.  A small quantity of water is poured into the platter; as fast as they freeze their contents are collected and conveyed, during the night, to the pit prepared for the reception of ice.  The rising sun disperses the labourers with the ice, and they seek their rest by day, and return again to their employ; as the lion, when the sun disappears, prowls out to seek his food from the bounty of his Creator.  The hoar frost seldom commences until the first of January, and lasts throughout that month.

’Roshunie’[51] (Ink).—–­Ink, that most useful auxiliary in rendering the thoughts of one mortal serviceable to his fellow-creatures through many ages, is here an article of very simple manufacture.  The composition is prepared from lampblack and gum-arabic; how it is made, I have yet to learn.