Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume III.).djvu/392

350 however, is not the most material point in which the state of arts and society in India has been underrated. I met not long since with a speech by a leading member of the Scotch General Assembly, declaring his “conviction that the truths of Christianity could not be received by men in so rude a state as the East Indians; and that it was necessary to give them first a relish for the habits and comforts of civilized life before they could embrace the truths of the Gospel.” The same slang (for it is nothing more) I have seen repeated in divers pamphlets, and even heard it in conversations at Calcutta. Yet, though it is certainly true that the lower classes of Indians are miserably poor, and that there are many extensive districts where, both among low and high, the laws are very little obeyed, and there is a great deal of robbery, oppression, and even ferocity, I know no part of the population, except the mountain tribes already mentioned, who can, with any propriety of language, be called uncivilized.

Of the unpropitious circumstances which I have mentioned, the former arises from a population continually pressing on the utmost limits of subsistence, and which is thus kept up, not by any dislike or indifference to a better diet, or more ample clothing, or more numerous ornaments than now usually fall to the peasant’s share (for, on the contrary, if he has the means he is fonder of external shew and a respectable appearance, than those of his rank in many nations of Europe,) but by the foolish superstition, which Christianity only is likely