243 On Slaveri/ in Southern India. [July 



or to mortgage part of lluiv dwcllinL:: honsr or tlir land thoy bold 

 on the mt^eiassv tenure to raise funds for this purpose. There are 

 instances also of person"^ of the lower classes (I have known instan- 

 ces of poor Brahmuns) who may have attained the prime of life 

 without havin^j; heon married, owuig to the poverty or death of their 

 parents, who borrowed n>o>iey to enable them to enter into the 

 matrimonial state. T(j redeem the ol)ligati(>n they have thus ren- 

 dered themstlves liable to. they enter into an enpa-^ement to serve 

 the person who arcomniodatcd llum with the loan for a certain 

 number of years, at a fixed rate of waj:::es, the creditor in the interim 

 merely providing- them food and clothino;. 



Tlie task of explaining tlie abstrac t of tiieir system of Judicial 

 Astrology here applic-ible, will, 1 fear, be found to be very imper- 

 fectly executed and undeser\incr of any notice ; as being nothing 

 better than puerile trash, the meshes of its mysterious net being 

 only calculated to enthral the minds of an enslaved and superstitious 

 people for whom it was formrtl. 



(To be continued.) 



II. — On the state of Slavery in Southern India by A. D. 



Camphclf, Esq. M C. S. 

 (Extracted from Appendix to Report from Select Committee 

 on the affairs of the East India Company.) 



In the territories under the Madras Government, slaves are of 

 two distinct descriptions; the one includes the great slave popula- 

 tion termed " agrestic slaves" or such as arn usually employed in 

 the field, though occasionally also in other labour. These consist 

 exclusively of Hindoos, who become such by birth alone, in the 

 peculiar castes which the usage of India has doomed to hereditary 

 bondage. This species of slavery does not exist at all in the central 

 provinces of the Indian peninsula, such as the Ceded Districts, or 

 Mysore, peopled by the Carnatacka nation; and I believe it is also 

 unknown in the Northern Circars, Nellore, &c. or in the country 

 where the people speak the Telinga language ; but it is common in 

 the Southern provinces of the peninsula, or wherever the Tamil 

 language is spoken, and it assumes its worst form on the western 

 coast of the peninsula, or in the provinces of Malabar and Canara. 

 The other description of slaves consists of those who may be termed 

 domestic, from being employed only in the house itself. This kind 

 of slavery may be found all over the Madras territory, but it is 



