A traveller, on arriving, if it does not happen to be meal-time, is always presented with a cup of tea, without sugar, milk, or bread; unless occasionally, when you may be favoured with a small piece of sugar-candy out of a tin snuff-box, to be kept in your mouth to sweeten the bitter beverage as it passes.  When their tea and coffee are exhausted, a succedaneum is found in roasted grain, prepared in the same way as Hunt’s radical coffee, which, if not very palatable, is nevertheless a refreshment to a thirsty and weary traveller.  They never think of asking you to eat unless at meal-time; but then you are expected to draw in your chair, and help yourself, without invitation, in the same easy manner as one of the family.  The dishes consist for the most part of mutton stewed in sheep’s-tail fat, or boiled to rags; sometimes with very palatable soup, and a dish of boiled corn, maize, or pumpkin.  Cayenne-pepper, vinegar, and few home-made pickles, are also usually produced to relish the simple fare, which, served up twice a day, forms, with tea-water and the soopie, or dram of Cape brandy, the amount of their luxuries.  In this quarter of the colony, however, I found every where excellent bread; and, upon the whole, the farmers of Bruintjes-Hoogte and the Sneeuwberg appeared in much more independent and comfortable circumstances than those along the coast.

Thompson’s Southern Africa.

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HOSPITAL FOR THE DUMB.

The Banian hospital at Surat is a most remarkable institution; it consists of a large plot of ground, enclosed with high walls, divided into several courts or wards, for the accommodation of animals; in sickness they are attended with the tenderest care, and find a peaceful asylum for the infirmities of age.  When an animal breaks a limb, or is otherwise disabled from serving his master, he carries him to the hospital, and, indifferent to what nation or caste the owner may belong, the patient is never refused admittance.  If he recover, he cannot be reclaimed, but must remain in the hospital for life, subject to the duty of drawing water for those pensioners debilitated by age or disease from procuring it for themselves.  At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds, with an aged tortoise, who was known to have been there for seventy-five years.  The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats, mice, bugs, and other noxious vermin.  The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night among the fleas, lice, and bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation.

Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs.

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Useful Domestic Hints