NATIVES RELIGION. 43 



we sometimes see as accompaniments to our religious observances. No 

 one comes to the temple with a long face, but each is dressed in his or her 

 best, and with a view to enjoying him or herself ; and they go away with a 

 confidence that their wishes will be granted pleasant to see. Should the 

 result be unpropitious, they merely consider that something has been amiss 

 in their offerings, and are no more discouraged than better educated people 

 at the failure of their prayers. Whilst service is going on every one chatters 

 away without restraint, and I was often amused by the scenes I witnessed. 

 Sometimes young married women (they generally came in company for 

 mutual countenance), would be rolling round and round the temple on the 

 soft turf, to move Koombappah to give them children. As the trackers stood 

 leaning on their long spears, they carried on a running fire of chaff against 

 the unfortunate girls, expressing themselves freely (and sometimes in terms 

 which would certainly have aggravated an English female into giving them a 

 bit of her mind) as to their opinions of the revolvers' points, as, tightly en- 

 veloped in their cloths, all dripping from a purificatory plunge in the river, 

 these rolled over and over. 



There is no Government grant to this temple. The people support it 

 amongst themselves, and aU give the Poojaree a bundle of their crops at 

 harvest, which, together with the established perquisites at the temple, is suffi- 

 cient for his livelihood. I have heard people exclaim in India against the 

 Government's policy of maintaining grants-in-aid of what they are pleased to 

 call heathenism. The extension of views gained by mixing much with many 

 different people must teach any one who is not an unthinking Christian, that 

 there is good in everything, and as much that is suitable to the intellectual 

 status of the people in their religious institutions as in their costume, food, 

 and manner of Hfe. Is the Government to do away with ancient endow- 

 ments, and to interest itself with those who would force one or other of the 

 numerous religious beliefs of a comparatively small portion of the human 

 race upon two hundred and fifty millions ? Personally I have learned to 

 respect the feelings and earnestness of the simple village communities 

 around me. I can say that there is not a hypocrite in the country-side, 

 nor one who decries the religion of his neighbour — rather a contrast in 

 the latter respect to the jealous wranglers of various denominations who 

 do their own causes injury by their intolerance of each other in the same 

 mission-field. 



Good-natured and charitable, a pattern of amiability in his family rela- 

 tions, and ever ready to help his needy relatives, the rustic Hindoo is a 

 creature whom one cannot but like greatly, despite his constitutional men- 

 dacity and other little peculiarities that clash with English notions. 



