The chief out-door exercise taken by the youth of India, is an occasional ride on horseback or the elephant.  They do not consider walking necessary to health; besides which, it is plebeian, and few ever walk who can maintain a conveyance.  They exercise the moghdhur[14] (dumb-bell) as the means of strengthening the muscles and opening the chest.  These moghdhurs, much resembling the club of Hercules, are used in pairs, each weighing from eight to twenty pounds; they are brandished in various ways over the head, crossed behind, and back again, with great ease and rapidity by those with whom the art has become familiar by long use.  Those who would excel in the use of the moghdhurs practise every evening regularly; when, after the exercise, they have their arms and shoulders plastered with a moist clay, which they suppose strengthens the muscles and prevents them from taking cold after so violent an exercise.  The young men who are solicitous to wield the sabre with effect and grace, declare this practice to be of the greatest service to them in their sword exercise:  they go so far as to say, that they only use the sword well who have practised the moghdhur for several years.

At their sword exercise, they practise ‘the stroke’ on the hide of a buffalo, or on a fish called rooey,[15] the scales of which form an excellent coat of mail, each being the size of a crown-piece, and the substance sufficient to turn the edge of a good sabre.  The fish is produced alive from the river for this purpose; however revolting as the practice may appear to the European, it does not offend the feelings of the Natives, who consider the fish incapable of feeling after the first stroke; but, as regards the buffalo, I am told the most cruel inflictions have been made, by men who would try their blade and their skill on the staked animal without mercy.

The lance is practised by young men of good family as an exercise; and by the common people, as the means of rendering them eligible to the Native military service of India.  It is surprising to witness the agility of some of the Natives in the exercise of the lance; they are generally good horsemen, and at full speed will throw the lance, dismount to recover it, and remount, often without stirrups, with a celerity inconceivable.  I have seen them at these exercises with surprise, remembering the little activity they exhibit in their ordinary habits.

The Indian bow and arrow has greatly diminished as a weapon of defence in modern times; but all practise the use of the bow, as they fancy it opens the chest and gives ease and grace to the figure; things of no trifling importance with the Mussulmaun youth.  I have seen some persons seated practising the bow, who were unable to bear the fatigue of standing; in those cases, a heavy weight and pulley are attached to the bow, which requires as much force in pulling as it would require to send an arrow from sixty to a hundred yards from the place they occupy.[16]