Ch. xi. Indostan and Tibet. 199 



fore any considerable degree of want had reached 

 the middle classes of the society. The Abbe" 

 Raynal says (on what authority I know not), that, 

 when the crops of rice fail, the huts of these poor 

 outcasts are set on fire, and the flying inhabitants 

 shot by the proprietors of the grounds, that they 

 may not consume any part of the produce.* 



The difficulty of rearing a family even among 

 the middle and higher classes of society, or the 

 fear of sinking from their cast, has driven the 

 people in some parts of India to adopt the most 

 cruel expedients to prevent a numerous offspring. 

 In a tribe on the frontiers of Junapore, a district 

 of the province of Benares, the practice of de- 

 stroying female infants has been fully substan- 

 tiated. The mothers were compelled to starve 

 them. The reason that the people gave for this 

 cruel practice was the great expense of procuring 

 suitable matches for their daughters. One village 

 only furnished an exception to this rule, and in 

 that village several old maids were living. 



It will naturally occur, that the race could not 

 be continued upon this principle : but it appeared 

 that the particular exceptions to the general rule 

 and the intermarriages with other tribes were suf- 

 ficient for this purpose. The East-India Company 

 obliged these people to enter into an engagement 

 not to continue this inhuman practice. f 



On the coast of Malabar the Nayrs do not enter 



* Hist, cles Indes, torn. i. liv. i. p. 97. 8vo. 10 vols. Paris, 1795. 

 t Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 354. 



