118 The Ethnology of India. 



always among them a large educated class of their own, so much so 

 that in the early days of our rule in Upper India most of our public 

 servants were Mahommedans. Yet somehow there has sprung up 

 this special Writer class, which among Hindus has not only rivalled the 

 Bramins, hut in Hindustan may be said to have almost wholly ousted 

 them from secular literate work, and under our Government is rapidly 

 ousting the Mahommedans also. 



Very sharp and clever these Kaits certainly are, They are looked 

 on by Hindus as rather a low caste, and their appearance is not aris- 

 tocratic. Most of them are decidedly dark, generally spare thin men, 

 and, I should say, on the average short, with often sharp weasel-like 

 features, small and quite low-Arian. They are somewhat lax in 

 their ways, given to drink, and on their great annual festival, when 

 they worship the pen, it is rather the correct thing than otherwise to 

 have a good debauch. 



They have generally the office of Patwaree, or village accountant ; 

 and of high office, having always had a good share, they are getting 

 more and more a monopoly. They are, in fact, first-rate men of 

 business, and without pride ready to adapt themselves to our ways, 

 they have become almost indispensable to us. They have acquired 

 much landed property, some by honest means, some by dishonest 

 means, when very loose practices prevailed in our courts. And of 

 course, with dignity and wealth the respect with which they are re- 

 garded from day to day increases. What I have said of loose ways, is 

 only applicable to the lower and more common members of the sect. It is 

 only fair to acknowledge that there are now many high officers and 

 worthy proprietors of this class, whose respectability is great and con- 

 duct unimpeachable. I never remember to have heard a conjecture 

 as to the origin of the Kaits. They are never found in separate 

 villages, but are scattered about rather as a separate profession than a 

 separate race. There are a good many illiterate men among them 

 who earn their bread as they best can ; but most of them are educated. 

 I should not say that they anywhere in Hindustan form a very large 

 population. One may suppose that when the Bramins got indolent, 

 this class grew up as a sort of low-caste clerks to the Bramins, who 

 ruled by supplanting their masters. But whence did they get their 

 talent ? Some of the Aboriginal races seem to have activity and 

 bodily energy, but none of them mental talent. 





