286 Dr Govan's Observations on the Himalaya Mountains. 



lights the listening audience ; the dark and gloomy legends of 

 the Hindoo mythology succeed, related perhaps by the wan- 

 dering religious mendicant, often seemingly in character a most 

 unintelligible compound of knavery, enthusiasm, and insani- 

 ty, whom the most exalted in rank, the most elevated above 

 popular prejudices among his countrymen hardly dares to of- 

 fend, or even to exclude from notice and charity even in his 

 most uncouth form. He finds his way, and seems to meet 

 with a Avelcome everywhere, th<? carrier of intelligence between 

 Juggurnauth and Cape Comorin, and Astrachan or Siberia ; 

 the established medium of communication between hostile ar- 

 mies, spy to both parties, faithful to neither; equally ac- 

 quainted often with what passes in the interior of private fa- 

 milies, in defiance of all the obstacles which Eastern jealousy 

 has devised to render such knowledge almost impossible ; un- 

 der these circumstances often the plausible pretender to super- 

 natural powers, himself, perhaps, sometimes believing in his 

 possession of that to which he habitually lays claim. 



The itinerant minstrel sometimes furnishes more agreeable 

 subjects of human interest, when he sings of the lofty and in- 

 dependent spirit of the rajpoot chieftains of old, at the period 

 of the early invasion of Hindostan by the Mahomedans, their 

 undaunted valour, their chivalrous readiness to abandon life 

 and all it has to give, when any thing inconsistent with honour 

 was required of them. 



The observations called forth, and the discussions which 

 ensue upon these occasions, often afford a rich field for specu- 

 lation to any one delighting in the study of the human mind, 

 and the observation of human character in its most varied 

 forms and circumstances. 



In few places, however, is there any thing in the civil and 

 moral history of the country to bear us out in the analogy 

 which the mind would so much delight in establishing be- 

 tween these states and the European Alpine districts, whose 

 hardy natives probably are occupied in pursuits not dissimi- 

 lar, and inhabit a country equally abounding in sublime scene- 

 ry and the grandest of natural objects. 



The absence of all the domestic charities under the system 

 respecting females, formerly alluded to, the irregular calls for 

 the exertion of industry, with intervals of listless indolence, 



