Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/10



'We must receive with discrimination what we are told about India, for it is the most distant of lands and few of our nation have seen it. Those, moreover, who have seen it, have seen only a part, and most of what they say is no more than hearsay, Even what they saw they became acquainted with only while passing through the country with an army in great haste. Yea, even their reports about the same things are not the same, although they write as if they had examined the things with the greatest care and attention. Some of the writers were fellow soldiers and fellow travellers, yet ofttimes they contradict each other.' .

'One thing is sure; they [the natives of India] are much the most interesting people in the world and the nearest to being incomprehensible. At any rate the hardest to account for. Their character and their history, their customs and their religion confront you with riddles at every turn riddles which are a trifle more perplexing after they are explained than before. You can get the facts of a custom like caste and suttee and thuggee and so on and with the facts a theory which tries to explain them, but never quite does it to your satisfaction. You can never quite understand how so strange a thing could have been born, nor why.' .