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native princes, who have retained or recovered a certain degree of power, exercise a prerogative uncontrolled by any established rights or privileges. The only check has been one of a very irregular kind, arising from the turbulent sway of the inferior chiefs, whose influence over their immediate vassals is frequently exerted to support their own authority, which is not less absolute. Still, amid this corrupting despotism, traces are found of a system purely republican, existing in the villages which, over all India, have an interior constitution entirely distinct from the general rule to which the country at large is subjected.

A village, or rather township, is formed by a community Occupying a certain extent of land, the boundaries of which are carefully fixed, though often disputed. Sometimes it is cultivated by the united labour of the inhabitants; but more usually each ploughs his separate field, leaving always a large portion of common. Assignments of land are also made to various functionaries, who are charged with important public services. The principal personage is the potail, or head-man, who acts as judge and magistrate, and treats respecting the village affairs with other communities, or with the national rulers. Other duties are intrusted to the registrar, the watchman, the distributer of water, the astrologer, smith, carpenter, potter, barber, washerman, and silversmith. Whatever change the supreme authority in the kingdom may undergo, into whatever hands it may pass by inheritance, usurpation, or force of arms, whether its rulers be native or foreign, the peculiar constitution of each township remains unaltered; no revolutions affect it, no conquest changes it. Even when an overwhelming invasion or desolating inroad has compelled its members to leave their native seats, and to spend long years in exile, upon the first dawn of tranquillity they hasten back, and resume without resistance or dispute their ancient inheritance. These numerous republics, maintained in the vicinity of a powerful despotism, have doubtless contributed largely to the prosperity which India has enjoyed. Yet they are too much scattered to exercise any permanent check on the absolute power of the princes and chieftains who dispute among themselves the mastery of that extensive region.

The next grand feature, and one now peculiar to India, consists in the division of the people into castes ; an institution

which has long effected a separation among certain orders of society as complete as if they had belonged to different species, and which, though its power, owing to an increasing intercourse with the English, is beginning to be shaken, still continues immense. The four castes proceed in a descending scale, the Bramins, the Cshatryas, the Vaisyas, and the Sudras. It is religion, or rather a slavish superstition, by which these extraordinary distinctions are sanctioned, and at the same time reconciled and cemented so as to preserve from disorganization a community in which certain interests are kept in immutable subordination. The sacred books represent the Bramins as having issued in the moment of creation from the mouth of Brama, the Cshatryas from his arm, the Vaisyas from his thigh, while the Sudras drew their ignoble origin from his foot. Accordingly, while the first enjoy a rank almost equal to divinity, the latter are denied the rights and the place of human beings.

It must appear a remarkable circumstance, and is perhaps owing to the long subjection of India to Moslem dominion, that while the priestly or Braminical order are held in such unbounded veneration, no tax is levied, no lands assigned by government for their support, no provision even is made for the supply of their most urgent necessities. Considerable donations have indeed been granted to the brotherhood by charitable individuals, yet they still profess to be mendicants subsisting solely on alms. The youthful Bramin, as soon as he is invested with the poita or cotton thread which distinguishes his. order, begins to ask alms of his parents and of the surrounding company. Yet this situation, which would appear to sink them beneath every other class, is perhaps the chief cause which has led to their exorbitant acquisitions. Depending chiefly on the opinion and favour of the multitude, they are sometimes tempted to employ the most unwarrantable arts for securing and extending their influence. "A Bramin," said one of their number to M. Dubois, "is an ant's nest of lies and impostures." They cherish in the people all those debasing su perstitions to which the mind of man is prone; while they exalt, in an extravagant degree, the dignity of their own place and office, as well as the merit of those who confer donations upon them. The sacred books are filled with

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relations of the miraculous powers of Bramins exerted in drying up the sea, vomiting fire on their enemies, and trampling on the most powerful deities. Krishna is introduced as humbly presenting a party of them with water to wash their feet; and a story is diligently recited concerning one of their number who gave the most opprobrious reception to Brama, Vishnu, and Siva, when they came together to wait upon him. The laws not only pronounce the murder of a Bramin to be of deeper atrocity than that of any other individual, but punish as crimes the most trivial slights offered to that sacred class. If a Sudra presume to sit down on the carpet of a Bramin, the part thus sacrilegiously deposited is either burnt with a hot iron or entirely cut off. If he spit upon such a hallowed person, he is deprived of his lips. If he listen to reproaches against him, melted lead is poured into his ears. If he pluck him by the beard, the hands committing this outrage are forfeited. But to treat Bramins with honour, and confer gifts upon them, are actions of distinguished merit, atoning for almost every sin. In the great festivals, when the opulent occasionally make a display of their wealth, the leading object is to collect a great number of Bramins and send them away loaded with presents. At entertainments given by kings they amount to many thousands. Mr. Ward mentions one bestowed during Mr. Hastings's administration by the Dewan at Moorshedabad, where there were said to be present no fewer than 600,000 of that order. Large bequests of land, cows, and other precious effects are made to them by the pious. So far, indeed, do they rank above every other class, that the daughter of the poorest Bramin is taught to consider a king as no equal match for her; and the peishwa, when he was at the head of the Mahratta confederacy, and held the most commanding station of any Indian sovereign, was long excluded from eating at table with any Bramin of high caste.

The Čshatryas, or military class, are second in dignity, and bear even somewhat of a sacred character. During the era of Hindoo independence, not only generals, but even kings were chosen from this body; though, since the subjection of India by foreign powers, they have suffered a very severe depression. They have even been induced to imitate the costume and manners of Mussulmans, by whom, VOL. II.-X

under the Mogul empire, all commands and dignities were engrossed; and notwithstanding the limited nature of the promotion which they can obtain in the British service, they enter it in considerable numbers. The only powerful body of this class now remaining are those who, under the name of Rajpoots, occupy the wild tracts of country bordering on the Western Desert, whom their valour and the strength of their natural fastnesses have secured from complete subjugation even by the Mogul. These, however, form a peculiar tribe, whose habits and character will be noticed hereafter at greater length.

The Vaisyas rank third, and belong to the industrious part of the community; but their functions are not very distinctly or consistently explained. By some they are said to be traders, by others shepherds and cultivators. Their proper employment seems to be the carrying on of any business requiring the investment of capital, but of which the manual labour is performed by inferiors.

The Sudras stand lowest in the scale of castes, and suffer a degree of degradation greater than befalls any other class of persons not actually bondmen. They are not only doomed to severe and unremitting toil, but as far as possible are debarred from improving their circumstances. The attempt of a Sudra to accumulate property is declared to be unlawful, and to give pain to Bramins. Their spiritual prospects are equally clouded. Scarcely can they hope to reach heaven, or even by the process of transmigration to attain any higher condition on earth. They are not permitted to perform a single religious ceremony, and are exposed to a severe anathema for merely opening a page of the Vedas, the most ancient and revered depository of divine knowledge. Their only hope of emerging from contempt is by profound homage, lavish gifts, and menial services to the sacred caste. By such actions the Sudra may raise himself above his fellows, though he cannot, either in this or a future life, make any approach to the dignity of the superior classes.

The original and appropriate occupation of this caste is agricultural labour; yet certain grades or subdivisions are also found, who exercise the various trades and handicrafts necessary in an improved and luxurious society. These, comprehended under the general appellation of the burren

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sunker, are reported to have sprung from the irregular mixture of the higher orders, and form, according to Mr. Colebrooke, a species of outcasts; but, in general estimation, they hold nearly the same rank with the Sudras. Great estrangement prevails among these classes, many of whom will not visit, or hold the slightest intercourse with each other. Their employments are invariably transmitted by hereditary descent from father to son; but though they thereby acquire great mechanical skill, they never attempt to vary their method, or make any improvement on the models derived from their ancestors.

Hard as is the lot of the Sudra, it is enviable in comparison with that of him who, born to the most exalted rank, forfeits it through misconduct, accident, or the most trivial inadvertence. Tasting food or holding communication with persons of inferior caste, dealing in certain commodities, eating certain kinds of food, are the chief among those deadly sins which subject their perpetrator to as dreadful a doom as can befall a mortal. To swallow, however involuntarily, a morsel of beef, converts at once the most revered Bramin into a despised and miserable outcast. He forfeits his patrimony, and is excluded from all the courtesy and charities of life. "The loss of caste," says an intelligent writer in the Friend of India, "is the loss of the whole world. Henceforth the offender can see no more the face of father, mother, brother, or sister, or even of his wife or children. They will fly from his presence as from one infected by some deadly distemper." So insupportable is this fate accounted, that a great proportion of those who incur it either seek refuge in suicide, or, flying into remote exile and becoming wanderers over the earth, hide themselves from the view of those who had beheld them in the honours of purity.

In the south, and particularly in Malabar, is found a race named Pariahs, upon whom is entailed by birth this state of utter degradation. They are supposed by M. Dubois to constitute a fifth of the population of these countries, and are employed only in offices which the meanest labourer belonging to any caste would disdain; as scavengers, and in the rudest descriptions of country labour. They usually inhabit a suburb or district without the walls of the cities, which, from accumulated filth and the carrion hung up to