road until the avenue was planted, which carried us on one-third of the journey. No sooner were the trees in the ground, than the servants requested to be allowed to marry a neem to a young peepul-tree (ficus religiosa), which marriage was accordingly celebrated by planting a peepul and neem together, and entwining their branches. Some pooja was performed at the same time, which, with the ceremony of the marriage, was sure to bring good fortune to the newly-planted avenue.
The neem is a large and beautiful tree, common in most parts of India (melia azadirachta), or margosa-tree; its flowers are fragrant—a strong decoction of the leaves is used as a cure for strains.
Oil is prepared from the berry of the neem, (neem cowrie, as they call it,) which is esteemed excellent, and used as a liniment in violent headaches brought on by exposure to the sun, and in rheumatic and spasmodic affections. The flowers are fragrant: any thing remarkably bitter is compared to the neem-tree; "yeh duwa k[)u]rwee hy jyse neem:" this medicine is bitter as neem.
The bacäin, or māhā nimba, (melia sempervivens,) a variety of the neem-tree, is remarkably beautiful. "The neem-tree will not become sweet though watered with syrup and clarified butter[1]."
My pearl of the desert, my milk-white Arab, Mootee, is useless; laid up with an inflammation and swelling in his fore-*legs; he looks like a creature afflicted with elephantiasis—they tell us to keep him cool—we cannot reduce the heat of the stable below 120°!
I feel the want of daily exercise: here it is very difficult to procure a good Arab; the native horses are vicious, and utterly unfit for a lady; and I am too much the spoiled child of my mother to mount an indifferent horse.
August 28th.—Last week we made our sālām to the Earl of Arracan and his lady, who stopped at Allahabad, en route, and were graciously received.
The society is good and the station pretty and well-ordered;
- ↑ Oriental Proverbs, No. 19.
