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 XXI

INTRODUCTION.

their auspices and commencing with their entertainment. The last sciences which svirvive are those bearing on the daily life of a people, and in the decay of Hindu learning it is the Brahman only who studies the old languages of the country to make himTheir great self conversant with ceremonial and astrology. numbers have far exceeded the wants of their votaries or the limits of the widest charity, and we find them employed in almost every pursuit, without, however, any loss to their inherent sanctity. As cultivators they abound, but are undesirable, not only because they are lazy and careless and one of their two great divisions declines to touch the plough, and relies on a wasteful slave labour but still more from the impossibility of getting a full rent from them, and the difficulty of making them pay any rent at all. They are good soldiers, and the generic term of " Pdnde," which was applied to the men of our sepoy army, is derived from one of their subdivisions, Avhile the in-

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fluence they exercise over the people makes them invaluable in the manao-ement of estates and the realization of rents. They encroach largely on the proper employment of the third or Vaisya caste, and supply a great number of the village moneylenders, and when no other pursuit is_ open to them, they will work with the spade on roads and railways. Menial service with

of their own religion they will not submit to, nor would it be accepted from them. Next in importance to them are the Chhattris, formerly the rulers of the whole, now the landowners of the greater part, Their position in this light will be seen more of the province. clearly in the next chapter. It is enough to say here that, as the professed soldiers, they supplied notonlv the whole body of chieftains, but the greater number of the intermediate class between the chief and the cultivator, who held particular villages on the

men

condition of rendering feudal service._ They now, therefore, conwhat is known as the zamindar stitute the main element of many meanings) and hold more class (the word zamindar has rights in the soil, than subordinate independent villages, more sword was the weapon The any other class in the province. of subsistence. means principal Now of their trade and their are driven back in overthey request, in longer no is it that numbers on land too narrow for their support, and are

crowded

which offers no prospect of compelled to submit to a poverty generous, they are hardly and alleviation. Tall, brave, handsome, and they are as much world, the excelled by any yeomanry in their traditions^and pride of elevated above the lower classes by they are above the Brahmans by the absence in their case

birth as