indolent and dirty, and their moral code permits to their women a plurality of
husbands. Their religion, which forbids the worship of idols, is in no respect
analogous to any existing Asiatic creed, and their language has no affinity to the
Sanscrit.* They are believed to he aborigines of southern India, exhibiting what
their ancestors were before they received those institutions which have stamped
upon the Hindoo race so peculiar a character.*
The Rajpoots are of light complexion, with more aquiline features than the
people of the adjacent provinces.
They are, however, genuine Hindoos. They were formerly engaged in incessant
wars : they have the vices of slaves added to those of robbers, with as little
regard for truth as the other Hindoos, while they possess a blood-thirstiness from
which the latter are very far removed.*-. In their demi-civilisation, their extravagant
fondness for their bards and their romantic chivalry, they strongly resemble
the Europeans of the middle ages. The Itarejas are a Rajpoot tribe who, owing
to some singular dilemma of caste, cannot find a single individual with whom a
daughter of theirs can he matched; whence they have adopted the horrid expedient
of putting to death all their female children, so that in 1818, in a population of
twelve thousand souls, there were not more than thirty women alive !$
The Sikhs were originally a kind of dissenters from the Hindoo faith, whose
fundamental principles were " devotion to God and peace towards man.” Their
numbers augmented rapidly, embracing multitudes of Hindoos and many Mahometans
; hut being pressed beyond endurance by the tyranny of their Mussulman
neighbors, they at length discarded the olive branch and took up the sword, possessed
themselves of their native province of Lahor, and conquered the Punjab; and now
constitute, under the sway of Runjeet Singh, the most powerful native government
in India. ||
In Malabar the inhabitants are black, but have good features and the general
exterior of the Hindoos; hut the prejudices of caste are carried to an extent
unknown in other parts of India. Thus,11 if a cultivator or a fisherman presumes
to touch one of the nairs, or military class, the nair is considered fully justified in
killing him on the spot. The same fate befals the paria who ventures even to
look him in the face, and does not, on seeing him at a distance, instantly take
* Harkness. On the Aborig'.'Kace of the Neilgheny Hills, p. 7,25..
t British India, II, p. 273. J.Hebeb, Narr. II, p. 56. Am . ed.
§ British India. By Murray and others, II, p. 370.
|| Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs, passim.
flight. This last race are all slaves, a condition not common in the rest of
Hindostan. But there is another class of sufferers whom a barbarous pride has
stripped beyond any other of the most common rights of humanity: the niadis are
excluded from all human intercourse, forced to wander in unfrequented places,
without any means of support except the alms of passengers. These they
endeavor to attract by standing at a little distance from the public road, and
howling like hungry dogs, till the charitable wayfarer lays on the ground some
donation, which, after his departure, they hastily carry off*.”*
The inhabitants of Ceylon, who are called Singalese, are black like those of
Malabar, but are less oppressed and therefore less degraded. They are represented
as courteous in their manner, and despise both theft and falsehood. Their
disposition is mild; yet when their anger is once roused, they are singularly
violent and implacable. The dominant religion is that of Budha, the remaining
sectaries being chiefly of the Brahminical persuasion. The Singalese have a
tradition of their former affiliation with the people of Siam, and they certainly
possess, both in their religious rites and their physical conformation, some
resemblance to that people. Perhaps the latter circumstance may be accounted
for by the presence of the Malays, who have long colonised their coasts.
The Hindoos are among the oldest nations of the earth. Their present
c ivilisation, w ith its institution of castes—their religion, which is Brahminical
and their language, which is Sanscrit, may all be traced to an antiquity of nearly
three thousand years.
The castes are four great divisions or classes, each designed to be isolated and
exclusive in all its relations. They are, 1st, the Brahmins, or Priests; 2d, the
Rajahs, (or Kishatrias*) or Soldiers; 3d, the Vaisya, or merchants and cultivators;
and 4, the Sudras, or subordinate cultivators, who are, in fact, the slave population
of Hindostan. Each of these tribes is subdivided into several more, of which
the number is uncertain.! This singular thraldom prohibits all intermixture or
association of castes: yet notwithstanding the severest social and bodily penalties,
the impure or mixed castes are very numerous; for of these the Pariahs alone are
said to constitute one fifth of all the people of India. Inferior, if possible, to these
are the Pallis of Madura, and the Puliahs of Malabar, whose touch is defilement
even to a Sudra.
The Brahminical religion of the Hindoos is essentially idolatrous. The
* Murray, Encyc. of Geog. p. 997. t Dubois, People of India, p. 54..