Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/96

36 they support as well as instruct. These Persian and Arabic students, although of respectable families, are considered as living on charity; and they are total strangers to expense and dissipation. The alleged absence of schools of Hindoo learning in a population of which six-sevenths are said to be Hindoos is incredible, and is denied by learned Natives who have resided in the district and are personally acquainted with several schools of that description within its limits. They are not so numerous as the domestic schools of learning which prevail amongst the Mahomedan population; but they are not so few as to be wholly neglected. There are probably, I am told, about 40 in the district. It may be offered as a general remark to account for such incorrect statements, that the greater attention given by Europeans to the Mahomedan than to the Hindoo languages and literature, combined with the unobtrusive and retiring character of learned Hindoos, sometimes leads the public functionary to overlook institutions of Hindoo origin. It is probably from some such official authority that Hamilton has borrowed the statement to which I refer.

Population.— According to Mr. Stirling this province or district is divided into three regions, distinguished from each other by climate, general aspect, productions, and institutions. The first is the marshy woodland tract which extends along the sea-shore from the neighborhood of the black Pagoda to the SabanrekhaSubarnrekha [sic], varying in breadth from five miles to twenty. The second is the plain and open country between that tract and the hills, the breadth on the north being ten or fifteen miles and never exceeding forty or fifty. The third is the hill country. The first and third are the country occupied by the ancient feudal chieftains of Orissa; the second is that from which the indigenous sovereigns and the Moghul conquerors of the country derived the chief part of their land revenue, and which at present pays a rent to the British Government, whilst the two others yield tribute. The first and third divisions are said not to contain a single respectable village, and in the second or Orissa Proper, the only collections of houses that deserve the name of towns are Cuttack, Balasore and Jugunnauth. The Oorias of the plains are the most mild, quiet, inoffensive, and easily managed people in the Company’s provinces; but they are deficient in manly spirit, ignorant and stupid, dissolute in their manners, and versed in the arts of low cunning, dissimulation, and subterfuge. The inhabitants of the hills and of the jungles on the sea-shore are more shy, sullen, inhospitable, and