74G Account of the Origin, etc. of the [July, 



resist injunctions, injudiciously urged, with dogged obstinacy. They 

 are void of all violence towards their own people or towards their neigh- 

 bours, and though very shy of strangers, are tractable and pleasant when 

 got at, if kindly and cheerfully drawn out. The Commissioner of Assam, 

 Major Jenkins, who has by far the best opportunities for observing them, 

 when drawn out of their forest recesses, gives them, as we have seen, 

 a very high character as skilful, laborious cultivators, and peaceable 

 respectable subjects ; whilst that this portion of them want neither 

 spirit nor love of enterprise, is sufficiently attested by the fact, that 

 when the Dorjiling corps was raised two-thirds of the recruits first ob- 

 tained were Bodo of Assam. Neither the Bodo nor Dhimal however, 

 can be characterised, upon the whole, as of military or adventurous 

 genius, and both nations decidedly prefer, and are better suited for 

 the homebred and tranquil cares of agriculture. They are totally free 

 from arrogance, revenge, cruelty and fierte ; and yet they are not de- 

 void of spirit, and frequently exhibit symptoms even of that passion- 

 ate or hasty temperament, which is so rare, at least in its manifesta- 

 tions, in the east. Their ordinary resource against ill-usage is immove- 

 able passive resistance : but their common demeanour is exempt from 

 all marks of the wretched alarm, suspicion and cunning that so sadly 

 characterise the peasantry of the plains in their vicinity, and which, 

 being habitual, must be fatal to truth. The Bodo and Dhimal in this 

 respect, as in most others, more nearly resemble the mountaineers, 

 whose straight-forward manly carriage so much interests Europeans in 

 their favour. Oppression and its absence beget these different phases 

 of character. The absence of all petty trade likewise contributes ma- 

 terially to the candour and integrity of the Bodo and Dhimals. Among 

 all mankind, women, wine, and power are the great tempters, the great 

 leaders astray. Now the Bodo and Dhimals rise decidedly superi- 

 or to the first temptation ; are not unduly enslaved to the second ; and, 

 from the perfect equality and subject condition of the whole of them, 

 are entirely exempted from the third. Power cannot mislead those who 

 never exercise it : where women are esteemed and no artificial impedi- 

 ments whatever exist to prevent marriage, women are a source, not of 

 vice, but of virtue : and, lastly, where " honest John barley corn" is 

 free from the dangerous alliance of spirits, opium and hemp, I know not 

 that he, even if assisted by the "narcotic weed," need be set down as a 



