MATCHLOCKS or toradar-banduq of a peculiar make were manufactured in the Shorapur district, as also jumbea, knives, daggers, etc., etc. The price of a good matchlock without ornament is from Hs. 10 to 12. A superior matchlock is made at Koteli; the barrel is filed smooth on the outer surface, and, being carefully cleansed from grease by scouring with wood-ashes, is set upright in a hollow cylinder of brass, which is filled with a solution of white vitriol in water. The cylinder is placed upon a slow fire, and in two days the veins of the damask are developed in high relief. Nothing can be imagined more elegant than the twisted damask of Koteli. It surpasses that of Herat. The straight damask being less tenacious than the twisted variety, should be made of greater solidity. Matchlocks are usually constructed with an oviform chamber, which is harmless enough with the weak gunpowder of the bazars, but dangerous when English gunpowder is em ployed. It no doubt economizes the charge. The barrel is made to swell abruptly at the breech, to accord with the shape of the chamber. matchlock of Herat is generally rifled, a process unknown at Koteli, where, however, flint and detonator locks are made superior to those of most Indian fabrics. The rifling process is very rudely contrived at Herat. In a cylinder of hard wood corresponding in length with a gun-barrel, two parallel and spiral grooves are rudely chiselled; a collar of wood is formed in an upright post, opposite to another post, into which the barrel is to be jammed, and within this collar are two short iron pegs, fitting into the grooves of the cylinder. A boring - rod is then firmly attached to the cylinder, the cylinder forming both handle and guide. The boring-bit is a cylindric rod rather thicker towards the extremity than elsewhere. Its thickest portion exactly fits the muzzle of the piece. It has a groove at the extremity, into which fits a small sharp wedge bf hardened steel. When first inserted into the barrel, this wedge scarcely projects above the surface of the boring rod. It is now introduced into the muzzle, and the wooden cylinder is pushed forward by the workman, who leans his weight against it. Of course, as it enters the barrel, the spiral grooves of the wooden cylinder, being guided by the fixed pegs in the collar, give the rod and bit a corre sponding spiral motion, by which a spiral scratch is made in the interior of the barrel. The wedge is then slightly heightened and the scratch is thus deepened, until the workman considers it sufficient. This process is repeated until six or seven grooves have been formed. The Herat rifle, being care fully loaded with balls wrapped in leather or cloth, is tolerably true, MAT'll, Ast'hol, or Akora, also Matham its the Tamil language, are the residences of the monastic communities of the Hindus, and are scattered over the whole of India. They generally
comprehend a set of huts or chambers for the mahant or superior and his permanent pupils ; temple sacred to the deity whom they worship, or the sainadh or shrine of the founder of the sect, or sonic eminent teacher ; and a dharin sala, one or more sheds or buildings for the accommodation of the medicants or travellers, who are constantly visiting the mat'h. Most mat'hs have endowments of land, generally of small extent, but as the mat'hs are numerous, the quantity of land in a district pertaining to a mat'h is extensive. But besides lands, they receive presents from lay votaries, ask alms daily in their neighbourhoods, and sometimes traffic. The mat'h is under the entire control of a mahant or superior, with a certain number of resident chela or disciples, with a large number of vagrant or out-members. The mat'hs of the various dis tricts look up to some of their own order as chief, and, under the presidence of this chief mahant, on the demise of any of their brethren, they elect a successor from amongst the chela or disciples, the new mahant being regularly installed at the hands of the president of the assembly, by investment. with the cap, the rosary, the frontal mark or tika or other monastic insignia. In these matters the British Government never interfere. Amongst the Hindus, there is a lay and a priesthood class, the latter being sometimes monastic and sometimes secular, and the Vaishnava sect leave this a matter of choice. The Vallabhacharya sect, indeed, give the preference to married teachers, and all their gosains are men of business and family ; the preference, however, is usually assigned to teachers of an ascetic or ceenobitic life. The ccenobitic members of the different communities, at one period or other of their lives, have pursued an erratic mendicant life, travelling over India singly or in bodies, subsisting by alms or merchandise, or some of them, as must be the case amongst such large bodies of men, by less unexceptionable means, like the Sarabaites of the east, or the mendicant friars of the Latin Church. The doctrine that intro duced similar unsocial institutions into the Christian church in the 4th century, is still most triumphantly prevalent amongst Hindus and Buddhists in the east, the land of its nativity. Monastic establishments and solitary mortifica tion originated in the specious appearance and pompous sound of that maxim of the ancient philosophy, that in order to the attainment of true felicity and communion with God, it was necessary that the soul should be separated from the body here below, and that the body was to be macerated and mortified for that purpose.— Wilson in As. Soc. Proceedings. See Monastery.