were earning but a bare subsistence, groaning under intolerable burdens, and hardly able to supply themselves with the necessaries of life, much less with its luxuries.’
114
Turner, who travelled in 1783 through the north-east of Bengal, says: ‘Indeed, the extreme poverty and wretchedness of these people will forcibly appear, when we recollect how little is necessary for the subsistence of a peasant in these regions. The value of this can seldom amount to more than one penny per day, even allowing him to make his meal of two pounds of boiled rice, with a due proportion of salt, oil, vegetables, fish, and chili.’ Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 11. Ibn Batuta, who travelled in Hindostan in the fourteenth century, says: ‘I never saw a country in which provisions were so cheap.’ Travels of Ibn Batuta, p. 194.
115
The Sudras are estimated by Ward (View of the Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 281) at ‘three-fourths of the Hindoos.’ At all events, they comprise the whole of the working classes; the Vaisyas not being husbandmen, as they are often called, but landlords, owners of cattle, and traders. Compare Institutes of Menu, chap. ix. sec. 326–333, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. pp. 380, 381, with Colebrooke's Digest, vol. i. p. 15, from which it appears that the Vaisyas were always the masters, and that the Sudra was to ‘rely on agriculture for his subsistence.’ The division, therefore, between ‘the industrious and the servile’ (Elphinstone's History of India, p. 12) is too broadly stated, and we must, I think, take the definition of M. Rhode: ‘Die Kaste der Sudras umfasst die ganze arbeitende, oder um Lohn dienende Classe des Volks.’ Relig. Bildung der Hindus, vol. ii. p. 561.
116
‘Either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king shall cause a gash to be made on his buttock.’ Institutes of Menu, chap. viii. sec. 281, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 315. See also Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 67.
117
Menu, chap. viii. sec. 271, in Jones's Works, vol. iii. p. 314.
118
Menu, chap. viii. sec. 270.
119
‘If a Sudra gives much and frequent molestation to a Brahmin, the magistrate shall put him to death.’ Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 262.
120
Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 207. As to the case of striking a Brahmin, see Rammohun Roy on the Veds, p. 227, 2nd edit. 1832.
121
‘And if a Sooder listens to the Beids of the Shaster, then the oil, heated as before, shall be poured into his ears; and arzeez and wax shall be melted together, and the orifice of his ears shall be stopped up therewith.’ Halhed, p. 262. Compare the prohibition in Menu, chap. iv. sec. 99, chap. x. sec. 109–111, in Jones's Works, vol. iii. pp. 174, 398.
122
Halhed, p. 262: ‘the magistrate shall put him to death.’ In Mrichchakati, the judge says to a Sudra, ‘If you expound the Vedas, will not your tongue be cut out?’ Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part ii. p. 170.
123
Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. iv. p. 308. To this the only exception was in the case of theft. Mill's History of India, vol. i. pp. 193, 260. A Brahmin could ‘on no account be capitally punished.’ Asiatic Researches, vol. xv. p. 44.
124
Menu, chap. xi. sec. 132, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 422.
125
‘A Brahmin, if he take a Sudra to his bed as his first wife, sinks to the regions of torment.’ Institutes of Menu, chap. iii. sec. 17, in Jones, vol. iii. p. 121. Compare the denial of funeral rites, in Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. iii. p. 328. And on the different hells invented by the Hindu clergy, see Vishnu Purana, p. 207; Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. ii. pp. 182, 183; Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 113. The curious details in Rhode, die Religiöse Bildung der Hindus, vol. i. pp. 392, 393, rather refer to Buddhism, and should be compared with Journal Asiatique, I. série, vol. viii. pp. 80, 81, Paris, 1826.
126
Menu, chap. ii. sec. 31, in Jones, vol. iii. p. 87; also noticed in Rhode, Relig. Bildung, vol. ii. p. 561: ‘sein Name soll schon Verachtung ausdrücken.’ So, too, Mr. Elphinstone (History of India, p. 17): ‘the proper name of a Sudra is directed to be expressive of contempt.’ Compare Origines du Droit, in Œuvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 387, Bruxelles, 1840.
127
Menu, chap. x. sec. 129, in Jones, vol. iii. p. 401. This law is pointed out by Mill (History of India, vol. i. p. 195) as an evidence of the miserable state of the people, which, Mr. Wilson (note in p. 213) vainly attempts to evade.
128
‘A Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a state of servitude; for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested?’ Institutes of Menu, chap. viii. sec. 414, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 333.
129
An intelligent observer says, ‘It is also remarkable how little the people of Asiatic countries have to do in the revolutions of their governments. They are never guided by any great and common impulse of feeling, and take no part in events the most interesting and important to their country and their own prosperity.’ M'Murdo on the Country of Sindh, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 250. Compare similar remarks in Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 114; and even in Alison's History of Europe, vol. x. pp. 419, 420.
130
Volney (Voyage en Egypte, vol. i. pp. 58–63) has a good chapter on the climate of Egypt.
131
It is, however, unknown in South Africa. See the account of the Palmaceæ in Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, 1847, p. 136, and Meyen's Geog. of Plants, p. 337.
132
‘Of all eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the most favourite.’ Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 56. See also, for proof of their abundance in the west of Arabia, vol. i. pp. 103, 157, 238, vol. ii. pp. 91, 100, 105, 118, 209, 210, 214, 253, 300, 331. And on the dates of Oman and the east of Arabia, see Wellsted's Travels in Arabia, vol. i. pp. 188, 189, 236, 276, 290, 349. Compare Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, pp. 142, 296. Indeed, they are so important, that the Arabs have different names for them according to the stages of their growth. Djewhari says, ‘La dénomination balah précède le nom bosr; car la datte se nomme d'abord tala, en suite khalal, puis balah, puis bosr, puis rotab, et enfin tamr.'’ De Sacy's note to Abd-Allatif, Relation, de l'Egypte, p. 74, and see p. 118. Other notices of the dates of Arabia will be found in Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century, p. 66; Journal of Asiatic Soc. vol. viii. p. 286; Journal of Geograph. Soc. vol. iv. p. 201, vol. vi. pp. 53, 55, 58, 66, 68, 74, vol. vii. p. 32, vol. ix. pp. 147, 151.
133
Heeren (Trade of the African Nations, vol. i. p. 182) supposes that in Africa, dates are comparatively little known south of 26° north lat. But this learned writer is certainly mistaken; and a reference to the following passages will show that they are common as far down as the parallel of Lake Tchad, which is nearly the southern limit of our knowledge of Central Africa; Denham's Central Africa,
