Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/11

 Book VI through a long course of generations, have concurred with the languor peculiar to the unelastic atmosphere of the climate, to debase all the essential qualities of the human race, and notwithstanding the general effeminacy of character which is visible in all the Indians throughout the empire, the natives of Bengal are still of weaker frame and more enervated disposition than those of any other province: bodily strength, courage, and fortitude are unknown: even the labour of the common people is totally void of energy; and they are of a stupidity which neither wishes nor seems to be capable of extending its operations into any variety of mechanical dexterity. All those of the better casts, who are not fixed to the loom, are bred to the details of traffic and money, in which their patience and perseverance are as great as their detestation of danger, and aversion to bodily fatigue; and it is common to see the accounts of a huckster in his stall, who does not exchange the value of two rupees in the day, as voluminous as the books of a considerable merchant in Europe.

The natives of Bengal derive their religion from a code called the Shaster, which they assert to be the genuine scripture of Bramah, in preference to the Vidam, of which the followers assert the contrary, whilst neither understand the language of the original text, which is called the Shanscrit: the very disuse of this language is of the most remote antiquity; it is preserved only by the Bramins, and understood but by very few even of them. The two codes of the Shaster and Vidam divide almost equally the whole body of the Indian religion throughout Indostan. The followers of the Shaster are distinguished by the name of GENTOOS. The language as well as the written character of Bengal are peculiar to the natives, and not used in any other province, and both seem to be base derivations from the Shanscrit.

It appears from the history of Feritsha that the sovereignty of the Mahomedans was established in Bengal about the year 1200 , during the reign of Scheabbedin, the Gauride. At this time the capital, was Lucknouti, an immense city, to which the natives attributed great antiquity: it was situated on the right side of the Ganges, about