34 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



indolent and dirty, and their moral code permits to their women a plurality of 

 husbands. Their religion, which forbids the worship of idols, is in no respect 

 analogous to any existing Asiatic creed, and their language has no affinity to the 

 Sanscrit.^ They are believed to be aborigines of southern India, exhibiting what 

 their ancestors were before they received those institutions which have stamped 

 upon the Hindoo race so peculiar a character.! 



The Rajpoots are of light complexion, with more aquiline features than the 

 people of the adjacent provinces. 



They are, however, genuine Hindoos. They were formerly engaged in inces- 

 sant wars : they have the vices of slaves added to those of robbers, with as little 

 regard for truth as the other Hindoos, while they possess a blood-thirstiness from 

 which the latter are very far removed.J In their demi-civilisation, their extrava- 

 gant fondness for their bards and their romantic chivalry, they strongly resemble 

 the Europeans of the middle ages. The Rarejas are a Rajpoot tribe who, owing 

 to some singular dilemma of caste^ cannot find a single individual with whom a 

 daughter of theirs can be matched ; whence they have adopted the horrid expedient 

 of putting to death all their female children, so that in 1818, in a population of 

 twelve thousand souls, there were not more than thirty women alive !§ 



The Sikhs were originally a kind of dissenters from the Hindoo faith, whose 

 fundamental principles were " devotion to God and peace towards man." Their 

 numbers augmented rapidly, embracing multitudes of Hindoos and many Mahome- 

 tans ; but being pressed beyond endurance by the tyranny of their Mussulman 

 neighbors, they at length discarded the olive branch and took up the sword, possessed 

 themselves of their native province of Labor, and conquered the Punjab ; and now 

 constitute, under the sway of Runjeet Singh, the most powerful native government 

 in India. II 



In Malabar the inhabitants are black, but have good features and the general 

 exterior of the Hindoos; but the prejudices of caste are carried to an extent 

 unknown in other parts of India. Thus, " if a cultivator or a fisherman presumes 

 to touch one of the nairs, or military class, the nair is considered fully justified in 

 killing him on the spot. The same fate befals the paria who ventures even to 

 look him in the face, and does not, on seeing him at a distance, instantly take 



* Harkness. On the Aborig. Race of the Neilgherry Hills, p. 7, 25, 



t British India, II, p. 273. j Heber, Narr. II, p. 5Q, ^m. ed, 



§ British India. By Murray and others, II, p. 370. 



II Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs, passim. 



