Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/213

 The despotism of caste is certainly exceedingly high, and carried to such a pitch as to ignore all acts of charity and benevolence, and render the calls of humanity and mercy from all not of their own caste of no avail. But caste is an attribute of all nations,in our own country as well as in all countries, and if society throughout the world were analyzed, there would be found nearly the same amount of exclusiveness and intolerance.

Strangers are prone to form a wrong idea of the natives, and to identify them with the African,or the West Indian,and to call them niggers; but in reality they are a very handsome race, and were it not for their copper-colour, they would be acknowledged as fine specimens of the human species, even in our own exclusive isle. Many think that because they go almost naked, that they must necessarily be pinched with poverty, but their grandees, who drive their own carriages, take their airing with the upper portion of their persons bare, or covered by transparent muslin; and even those of the poorer classes have gold and silver ornaments in use that would purchase raiment for themselves many times over.

5. EDUCATION.—Much has been said about their ignorance; but out of a thousand natives, picked up indiscriminately in the streets of any town, as many individuals would be found able to read and write, and calculate, as in most parts of