1862.] Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. 507 



an unknown dialect about supplies or the propriety of our progress 

 (both of which are doubtful in such a territory), in their houses 

 we were treated with friendship and hospitality, unaccompanied with 

 that savage feeling which protects a traveller as a guest and betrays 

 him beyond the threshold of his sanctuary." And again a little further 

 on, " The absence of female chastity is a singular commentary to 

 their honest and pacific conduct, and the other social qualities of their 

 natural society." In the above passages Gerrard himself describes 

 them as hospitable and honest, or in other words possessed of truth 

 and generosity, two qualities indispensable to and a pars magna of 

 true nobility. It must be remembered that in Buddhist countries 

 chastity is a virtue in very slight estimation, and breaches of it 

 viewed in a far other light than among ourselves, and it is absurd 

 therefore to measure the breach of it among Mongolian Buddhists 

 by the standard prevalent amongst ourselves, but utterly unknown 

 among them. As well might a Brahmin argue (which few are so 

 illogical as to do,) the total moral debasement and impiety of Euro- 

 peans who touch beef, repugnant as the practice is to their religious 

 feelings. The morality or immorality of an action can only be 

 truly estimated with reference to the habits of thought or motive 

 with which it was committed. In Hindustan for instance, the 

 son who shortens his parents' days by stifling his father with the 

 mud of the sacred Ganges when stretched helpless on a sick bed, 

 or burns his mother on her husband's bier, far from being considered 

 in the light of a parricide, is regarded as having performed a pious 

 and exemplary part ; and the Christian prelate or Mahomedan con- 

 queror who, out of the pure love of God, dooms heretics to the flames 

 and the sword, is viewed by his respective co-religionists as follow- 

 ing the strict line of duty in so doing ; and it is the motives which 

 actuated them, and not a difference or disparity of the results, which 

 prevents our regarding such bloody-minded bigots as Mahomed or 

 Calvin with the same detestation as we regard the sordid murderers 

 Burke and Hare. 



I cannot quit this subject without remarking on the amiable and 

 pacific disposition of the men of Spiti, in which respect they contrast 

 most favourably with the Hindus and Mahomedans of Hindustan. 

 I have often heard disputes regarding provisions or the loads to be 

 carried, argued with considerable noise and animation, but the idea 



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