's birth, which, if a boy, is
greeted by the warmest demonstrations of unaffected joy in the houses both
of the parents of the bride and bridegroom. When a female child is born,
there is much less clamourous rejoicing at its birth than when a son is
added to honour the family;[1] but the good mother will never be
dissatisfied with the nature of the gift, who can appreciate the source
whence she receives the blessing. She rests satisfied that unerring Wisdom
hath thus ordained, and bows with submission to His decree. She desires
sons only as they are coveted by the father, and procure for the mother
increased respect from the world, but she cannot actually love her infant
less because it is a female.

The birth of a son is immediately announced by a discharge of artillery,
where cannon are kept; or by musketry in the lower grades of the Native
population, even to the meanest peasant, with whom a single match-lock
proclaims the honour as effectually as the volley of his superiors. The
women say the object in firing at the moment the child is born, is to
prevent his being startled at sounds by giving him so early an
introduction to the report of muskets; but in this they are evidently
mistaken, since we never find a musket announcing the birth of a female
child.[2] They fancy there is more honour attached to a house where are
many sons. The men make them their companions, which in the present state
of Mussulmaun society, girls cannot be at any age. Besides which, so great
is the trouble and anxiety in getting suitable matches for their daughters,
that they are disposed to be more solicitous for male than female children.

Amongst the better sort of people the mother very rarely nourishes her own
infant; and I have known instances, when a wet-nurse could not be procured,
where the infant has been reared by goals' milk, rather than the good lady
should be obliged to fatigue herself with her infant. The great objection
is, that in Mussulmaun families nurses are required to be abstemious in
their diet, by no means an object of choice amongst so luxurious a people.
A nurse is not allowed for the first month or more to taste animal food,
and even during the two years--the usual period of supporting infancy by
this nourishment--the nurse lives by rule both in quality and quantity of
such food only as may be deemed essential to the well-being of the child.

The lower orders of the people benefit by their superiors' prejudices
aga