I have seen them climb the highest trees in this manner with the greatest ease in two minutes at the most.
Round their bodies they have a belt, to which are suspended a knife and one or two small jars.
The sap is at first quite clear, and agreeably sweet, but begins, in six or eight hours' time, to ferment, and then assumes a whitish tint, while its flavour becomes disagreeably acid.

From this, with the addition of some rice, is manufactured strong arrack.

A good tree will yield above a gallon of this sap in four-and-twenty hours, but during the year in which the sap is thus extracted, it bears no fruit.
21st December.

About 80 miles below Rajmahal, we passed three rather steep rocks rising out of the Ganges.

The largest is about sixty feet high; the next in size, which is overgrown with bushes, is the residence of a Fakir, whom the true believers supply with provisions.