THE SUDRAS.

411 severity of tone. It is declared to be their especial duty to serve the other classes, but in no way to interfere in their callings. Even in the exercise of religious duties, they must perform them in a maimed and imperfect manner. The Veda is not allowed to be read even in their

presence; nor must any one of them presume to offer their advice.

Should a Sudra be killed, the religious penance for the act is similar to that for killing a cat or a dog. A Sudra is to be fed by the leavings of his master, and to be clad in his rejected garments; and as to worldly possessions, he is not permitted to accumulate the most trifling amount.

Such was the status of the Sudras in the early days of Indian empire; but in modern times, not only have great radical changes and innovations crept into the upper classes, but the two latter may be said no longer to exist; whilst in their places we find scores of other castes, less of a religious nature than of a social character.

There is no longer a servile caste; they have merged quietly but surely in the hundreds of classes now met with on every side in India. Not at all unfrequently these castes coincide with the various trades; such, for instance, as the goldsmiths, the washermen, and the carpenThese, if more numerous than of old, are certainly far more particular in regard to preserving the integrity of their respective castes which in olden times was seldom done.

ters.

CHAPTER III.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

IN

N a region equal in extent to the whole of Europe, with the exception of Russia, which has been the theatre of so many revolutions, numbering within its limits a population of a hundred and twenty millions, and counting not less than a dozen distinct nations, and at least four separate religions, we might reasonably look for a considerable dissimilarity of customs, manners, and character; and undoubtedly such is to be found in very many instances, drawing a line through the country, almost as broad and as marked as that of their dialects.

Not only do the inhabitants of the Deccan and the entire peninsula of India differ from those of Hindostan Proper in most particulars, but the latter, again, have little in common with the dwellers in the northwest; and even within the boundaries of Hindostan we may perceive a marked dissimilarity between the Bengalees and the inhabitants of Gangetic Hindostan. In personal appearance the natives of the northern countries are fairer, better formed, and more robust and energetic than those to the south, who, with the exception of some of the Malabar tribes, are of small stature, darker, effeminate, cunning, and timid to a degree. The communities of most of the towns are composed of bankers, traders, government officials, bazaar-keepers, and domestics. In the rural districts there are few beyond the agriculturists and the village headmen and officers of the government.

The mode of life of the Indian ryot is one of extreme simplicity, amounting but too often to misery, the result of an outward continual pressure kept on him by the zemindar and others of that class. The members of a family dwell with each other from grandfather to grandchild with patriarchal contentedness-one leafy roof, one bamboo-wall, sheltering old and young, the toiler and the tarryer; happy if the simple meal of roots and grain comes at the appointed time,-happy now and then to snatch a mouthful of forbidden rice from the fields their hands cultivate for the tax-farmer,-happy if at harvest-time all that crop be not wrung from them in rent and usury.

Poor as is the exterior of the Hindoo hut, with its patch of gardenstuff, its broken wall and its bamboo hedge, its interior wears not a more cheering aspect. A handful of rushes for a carpet covers a part of the mud floor; a few earthen vessels for water or purposes of cookery; a bamboo stool, a rush mat rolled up in one corner, which at night performs the office of a bed,-these make up the household inventory, so poor, so mean, so small in value, that were the insatiate tax-farmer to distrain for his rent, no coin would be found sufficiently minute to purchase them. Glass and crockery are mystic articles to the Hindoo villager: he may have heard of such things at the next town on festival-days, but his own supply of dinner-ware is provided by more bountiful hands than those of Spode and Copeland, the willowpattern is supplanted by the Banana leaf. An earthern chattie and ricedish are articles of luxury. In dress they have as little to boast of. One strip of cotton-cloth, bleached white with constant washings, or perhaps stained yellow or pink, is wound round the loins. On occasions of village or religious festivities a second strip will be flung loosely across the shoulders, to be afterwards carefully laid aside for the next occasion. The women wear a longer piece of white cloth wrapt round them in apparent negligence, and yet so gracefully as to set off the figure to the utmost advantage. Children are seldom clad until they attain the age of eight or nine. The reader has here a picture of that class of Indian cultivators, who, spread over a vast and fertile tract of country, may truly be called the flesh and bone of our Indian empire: from such as these springs the large export-trade of the presidencies, amounting to seventeen millions sterling annually; from such as these is wrung the greater portion of the twenty-two millions sterling of taxation it is these, whose only knowledge of their English rulers is derived through the medium of the revenue-farmer, whose education is cared for at the annual rate of three farthings per family.

There are, of course, classes superior to the above, scattered over the land: heads of villages, district functionaries, and dwellers in small towns, who pretend to somewhat of Hindoo gentility, whose wives and daughters dwell in distinct apartments, whose sleeping cotton-mat is a little more showy, whose waist-cloth is whiter and more copious, whose earthen drinking-vessels are transformed to utensils of brass, who dine off real plates of clay, and do not tremble at the names of "zemindar" and "Burrah Sahib."2

Uncared for, low in the scale of humanity, removed from all soften1 Milbrecht's Protestant Missions in Bengal.

2 Anglice, great (or English) master.

ing or ennobling influences, the height of their enjoyment, all that they value, is a carouse at the festival of some repulsive deity, or their midday gossip and hookah with the heads of their village under the cool shade of a banyan-tree. Home duties and domestic happiness are words without meaning in their ears; their wives and daughters have no social status, no education; they are simply necessary pieces of human furniture for the physical uses of man, and whose sole destiny is to raise families, to boil rice, and finally to die.

There is perhaps less difference in the food of the various classes than in any other respect. With all castes vegetables form the basis of their cookery, though some of the lower orders in large towns are not careful to abstain from eating flesh. Amongst the rural population there is little to be met with beyond a coarse unleavened bread made from various fine grains, with a few boiled vegetables, roots, a little oil or ghee made from buffaloes' milk, and perhaps a dash of some sort of

spice and a little salt. In the southern states of the peninsula rice forms a more prominent feature in their cookery; whilst to the north and north-west, flesh, whether of animals or birds, is more commonly employed in various ways.

In the towns a far greater variety of food is eaten, and generally with more regard to taste and indulgence. In the vicinity of the rivers fish abounds, and forms a staple article of daily food. The use of intoxicating drinks is chiefly confined to large communities, though amongst the Rajpoot tribes opium is used to a large extent. The most

common indulgence of nearly all classes is a mixture of betel and areca, aromatic pungent articles, combined with a sort of lime, and occasionally tobacco and spices.

In none of their daily observances does the prejudice of caste so strongly appear as in eating their meals. It is reckoned extreme defilement to eat from a plate or seated on the same mat as used by one of an inferior caste; and this leads to many strange customs, especially amongst the Brahmins, the highest in the social scale. It is not at all unusual for these people to eat from plates formed of the leaves of trees just gathered, in order to prevent pollution. In the same way, and for the same reason, members of the military or mercantile classes, when going a journey, are frequently compelled to dress their own victuals, wanting a cook of their own caste.

The dwellings of the Indian peasantry are generally miserable in the extreme, consisting of seldom more than two small rooms formed of stones and mud rudely thrown together, protected from the heat of the sun and the deluge of tropical showers by a simple roof of junglesticks and wild leaves; and usually without any garden-fence about them, they present a striking contrast to the tastily finished mansions. of their wealthy countrymen.

The more substantial men of the villages can seldom boast of much more; the chief distinction being that the latter indulge in a fenced garden, and often a second story to their hovels.

On the other hand, the Hindoos of rank indulge in much lavish outlay upon their mansions and pleasure-gardens, many of which vie with the extent and costliness of the Mahometan edifices in the time of the empire.

In the southern part of the peninsula a far greater degree of taste and neatness is displayed in the village dwellings, where not only are they frequently more prettily situated, but a marked regard is paid to the cleanliness and appearance of the cottages.

Every village, no less than each of the towns throughout India, boasts of its bazaar for the sale of the simple necessaries of Oriental life. In the hamlets of the rural districts, the bazaar will consist of a single small shop, whose whole stock consists of grain, some coarse cloths, a few sweetmeats, a collection of earthen vessels, and a bundle or two of tobacco, with occasionally some brass ornaments for the women. In the towns, a group of shops, of various kinds, containing far more miscellaneous stores, may be met with; and in the larger cities whole streets and squares are comprised within the bazaar.

There are besides these bazaars, markets held at short intervals,