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of money and effects, among the husbandmen, without bond, or 

 note, or witness, abundantly proves that this people, apparently so 

 destitute of morals, in one view of their character, are in another 

 habitually honest and true in their dealings; that they mutually 

 trust, and deserve to be trusted. The more intimately they are- 

 known, the more favourable is the judgment of every good and 

 humane European on the character of this interesting people; but 

 fully to understand them, requires to have lived and been edu- 

 cated among them, as one of themselves; and I conscientiously 

 believe, that for the purpose of discriminating the motives of action, 

 and the chances of truth in the evidence of such a people, the 

 mature life of the most acute and able European judge, devoted 

 to that single object, would not place him on a level with an intel- 

 ligent Hindoo panchaiet. 



" The fanciful notions of internal and external purity and un- 

 cleanness (the former having a twofold division of bodily and 

 mental) are the foundations of most of the distinctions of castes 

 Avhich seem so absurd to Europeans. To the question of what is 

 the difference between such and such a caste, the first answer will 

 certainly be to indicate what they respectively can and cannot eat; 

 but when we consider the plausible dogma not altogether unknown 

 in Europe, that a regular and abstemious life (which they would 

 name the internal purity of the body) contributes to mental ex- 

 cellence, we may be disposed to judge with more charit}" of the 

 absurdity of these distinctions. The Jungum priests, and the elect 

 among their disciples, abstain altogether from animal food; while 

 the Sheneveea brahmins of the Concan and the Decan indulge in 



fish; and many of Bengal, Hindostan, and Cashmire, eat the flesh 

 VOL. 11. 2 T 



