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