Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/235

Rh after this, that it was hardly worth while for him to continue his concerts in that neighbourhood.”

There is nothing, however, which creates so great a commotion in the streets at night, as the occurrence of a wedding in a wealthy family. For several successive days and nights, the ceremonies are kept up, and the streets filled by the procession; horsemen and footmen, with bands of music, and a train of men bearing huge torches, accompany the bridal palankeen, which is completely covered with garlands and tassels of fragrant or showy flowers. The procession is followed by one or more carts loaded with great skin-bottles, or rather casks of oil, from which the torch-bearers replenish their vessels. Fireworks, too, are let off from time to time, greatly to the discomposure of your horse, when you meet such a procession in the narrow streets. This show and feasting is at the expense of the bride's father; and such is the tyranny of fashion, that a man will often impoverish and embarrass himself with debt for years to come, to be able to give his daughter a fine wedding. This is one reason of the unwelcomeness of a daughter's birth: for to have