Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/212

 Private property is no where so safe, for bolts and bars are unknown; the doors stand open night and day, and robberies are less common than in England. Much has also been said respecting the dishonesty, the rapacity,and the want of principle of the natives, yet few residents keep even their own keys, or even their own purses, entrusting everything they have to a servant, whose wages are only fifteen shillings a month. But he who has learned to protect himself in person and property in old Albion need be under no apprehension for those in any other region of the globe.

The great mass of the population is either Hindoo or Mussulman. In outward appearance there is but little distinction,but in reality no bond of union,no social intercourse subsists between them. They are equally intolerant of each others religion, repugnant to intermarrying, incapable of sitting down to the same feast, or partaking of the contents of the same cup; so much so that a high caste Brahmin would consider himself defiled by putting a dish used by a Mussulman to his lip, and this only to be expunged by a long course of ablution and devotion. Nor is this intolerance restricted to the two great branches of the population; each has numerous castes among their own order, equally intolerant of each other. A Sheeah and a Soonie Mussulman are as distinct as Catholic and Protestant.