INDIA 



2!M-l 



INDIA 



, 



English entered the 

 country they found 

 prevalent the custom 

 of suttee, or the burn- 

 ing of widows on the | / 

 funeral pyres of their 

 husbands, but they 

 took at once the most 

 determined measures 

 to suppress it. The 

 same stern measures 

 were used against such 

 pagan rites as the sac- 

 rifice of human beings 

 to the gods, and the 

 putting to death of 

 baby girls because 

 they were not wanted. 



It is impossible to give any general descrip- 

 tion of the dress of the country, so widely does 

 it vary, but for the most part it is picturesque 

 and has that looseness and lightness which a 

 hot climate demands. White is a favorite color 

 everywhere. The mass of the people in India 

 . are very poor, and their clothing, as well as 

 their food and their home comforts, must be of 

 the simplest and scantiest, but in great con- 

 trast with this is the wealth and luxury of the 

 native princes. Some' of them possess riches 

 gathered by their ancestors through centuries, 

 and when dressed in their robes of state wear 

 gems of almost incredible value. Kipling in his 

 King's Ankus gives a fascinating description 

 of the treasure vaults in a ruined palace. 



The illustrations show how native women live, 

 in different stages of advancement. 



Languages. There is no one national lan- 

 guage of which the other tongues are but dia- 

 lects; indeed, it is estimated that no fewer 

 than 147 distinct languages are spoken within 

 the empire. But the speech of over half of the 

 people belongs to the Indo-Germanic family 

 of tongues, and is closely allied to Sanskrit 

 (which see). The most important dialects of 

 this, language are the Hindi, spoken by 80,000,- 

 000; the Bengali, spoken by 44,000,000; and 

 Marathi, spoken by more than 27,000,000. One 

 very common language is Hindustani, which is 

 Hindi mixed with Arabic and Persian. 



In the southern part of the peninsula the 

 languages do not belong to this same family, 

 and of these non-Aryan tongues the Dravidian 

 is the most widespread. Of course, the Euro- 

 pean languages, French, English and German, 

 are spoken wherever 

 these nationalities 

 have settled, but they 

 have made little head- 

 way among the na- 

 tives. 



Education. The 

 highest class of all in 

 India, the Brahmans, 

 has never been with- 

 out an educational 

 system, such as it was, 

 but the mass of the 

 people have been in 

 dense ignorance. It 

 cannot be said that 

 much has been done 

 to change this condi- 





