"Gold is known by the touchstone, and a man by living with him[1]."
"Some salagrams are perforated in one or more places by worms, or, as the Hindoos believe, by Vishnu in the shape of a reptile; some are supposed to represent his gracious incarnation, but when they border a little in colour on the violet they denote a vindictive avatār, such as Narasinga, when no man of ordinary nerve dares keep them in his house. The possessor of a salagrama preserves it in clean cloth; it is frequently perfumed and bathed; and the water thereby acquiring virtue, is drunk, and prized for its sin-expelling property."
The shalgrams, which are in my possession, are of exactly the shape and size represented in the sketch.
July 17th.—On this day, having discovered a young friend ill in the Writer's Buildings, we brought him to our house. Two days afterwards I was seized with the fever, from which I did not recover for thirteen days. My husband nursed me with great care, until he fell ill himself, and eleven of our servants were laid up with the same disorder.
The people in Calcutta have all had it; I suppose, out of the whole population, European and native, not two hundred persons have escaped; and what is singular, it has not occasioned one death amongst the adult. I was so well and strong—over night we were talking of the best means of escaping the epidemic—in the morning it came and remained thirty-six hours, then quitted me; a strong eruption came out, like the measles, and left me weak and thin. My husband's fever left him in thirty-six hours, but he was unable to quit the house for nine days: the rash was the same. Some faces were covered with spots like those on a leopard's skin. It was so prevalent, that the Courts of Justice, the Custom House, the Lottery Office, and almost every public department in Calcutta, were closed in consequence of the sickness. In the course of three days, three different physicians attended me, one after the other having fallen ill. It is wonderful, that a fever producing so much pain in the head and limbs, leaving the patient
- ↑ Oriental Proverbs, No. 17.
