docile and amenable to authority, none more courteous or respectful towards age and learning, none more dutiful to parents, none more intelligent." As for the vices

and defects he found among them, these abound to no greater extent than they do "among those merely nominal Christians who, after all, constitute the real mass of the people in Europe."

Those who have mixed most freely with the Hindoos, Mountstuart Elphinstone, for instance, and Colonel Meadows Taylor, bear witness to the same effect. Both describe them also as honest in their transactions with each other; and Elphinstone, who had a clear eye for both sides of their character, declares with much truth, not only that those who have known them the longest have always judged them most favourably, but that "all persons who have retired from India think better of the people they have left after comparing them with others, even of the most justly-admired nations.” Lord Northbrook spoke on a recent occasion under similar impressions. "Taking India altogether, those millions of Indians are a people who commend themselves most entirely to the affections of those who govern them. I do not think there exists a more contented people, a people more ready to obey to the letter and feel confidence and trust in those put over them. All do their duty to their relations and friends in times of difficulty, and all live peaceably one with another. There is no man, I venture to say, who has had charge of a district of India, and has had to deal with the natives of that country, who will not say the same as I am saying now -no man who has had charge of a district who does

not go away with a feeling of affection for the natives of India-a feeling which remains with him during his life."

The Hindoos are humane by nature, and believing as they do in the transmigration of souls are, especially in the South, careful of animal life, lest in destroying a beast of prey, or a noxious reptile or insect, they may have injured a remote ancestor or deceased friend.

But it is hardly possible to give a perfectly fair and sound estimate of the general character of a people divided into so many castes and classes, loosely held together by certain affinities of race, language and religion. What is true for instance of the modern Bengálee, as painted for us in Macaulay's memorable portrait of Nand-Kumár, would be far from true if applied to the average Hindoo of the North-West Provinces, or even to the Mahrattas of Western and Central India, and would in no way be applicable to the Seikhs. Differences of climate and passing circumstances must have played their part in moulding for good or ill the different types of native character, mental as well as physical. Consider, too, the difficulty of passing a fair judgment on people with whom we can never come into close social contact. As the moon always shows the same side of her body to our earth, so it is obvious that our native Indian subjects show but a part of their true nature to their foreign lords. That very courtesy which leads them to say pleasant things to our faces, enhances the difficulty of judging them aright. If it is hard for an average Englishman to understand an Irishman or a Frenchman, how very much harder for him to take the true measure of a people whose ways,

thoughts, feelings, interests, are widely distinct from ours; whose social leaders will not even eat or drink with us, with whose wives and daughters no man is permitted to talk face to face, and whose self-esteem is continually wounded by the proofs of their subjection to a strange, unyielding, though far from oppressive rule.

Giving every consideration to the many good qualities possessed by the natives of India, it must be admitted by those who know them best that they are not a people formed to govern, but rather to yield obedience to a stronger will, their ability to pass competitive examinations, notwithstanding.

Of course there are numerous individual exceptions to the above, especially in the northern and western provinces of India, but as for the acute and subtle genuine Bengalees, "there never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by nature and by habit for a foreign yoke."*

Lord Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays.

CHAPTER VII.

EARLY HISTORY OF INDIA.

Complication of early Indian History-Alexander's Invasion of the Punjaub, B.C. 327-First Authentic Information-Commencement of Continuous History, A.D. 1000-Rule of Rajpoot Princes-First Mahommedan Invasion by Mahmoud of Guzni-189 Years after his Death his Dynasty was exterminated by Mamoud, of Ghor.

HAVING described the extent and physical characteristics of the country, and having given some account of the various races which inhabit it, a brief glance at the early history of India appears desirable before adverting to the origin and progress of British rule in that country.

That complicated record of countries and dynasties, which we include under the comprehensive title of the history of India, presents great difficulties alike to the student, and to the historian. The vastness of the subject would seem to exact detail, yet the amount of details, which interrupted civilisation, continual warfare, the history of vast territories, complex constitutions, and quickly changing dynasties afford, seems almost to defy a comprehensive treatment of the subject. Little or nothing is known of the history of India before the time of Alexander's invasion. The Vedas date about 1400 B.C., the code of Menu from 900 to 300, the Ramyana and the Mahabarata somewhat later. But these sacred books give us a picture of the religious and social condition of India, rather than of its political history.

It is to the officers of Alexander's army, that we owe our knowledge of ancient India. The accounts they wrote, condensed and verified by Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, Arrian, and Athenæus, dating from the invasion of the Punjab, B.C. 327, are our earliest authentic sources of information, and it is not until the year A.D. 1000, that we have anything like a continuous history of India.

That date marks the era when Mahmoud of Ghuzni invaded the country of the Hindoos, and Sanscrit, the ancient language of poetry, philosophy, and science gave way, before the rougher language of the camp. From the earliest records, we learn that India had always been divided into large provinces, or kingdoms, and that these were ruled by rajahs, or kings, supported by a council of Brahmins or priests, who were entitled to sit on the right of the throne, while the Cahutriyas, or warriors, occupied the left. The Brahmins had supreme power. They could condemn a king, if they saw fit, but no provocation on their part would have been recognised as an excuse for that sovereign, who should dare to take the life of one of these holy men. It is believed that from very early ages, the provinces, west of the Indus, were tributary to the kings of Persia. Alexander the Great claimed India through Persia, and 800 years after Alexander's time, we find that the Shah of Persia still styled himself king of India. There was however no paramount sovereign of India at the time of Mahmoud's invasion. The rajahs were united for defence, under the rajah or king of Canouje, to whom as Protector all tributary princes paid allegiance. The Rajpoot race