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ON THE SIKHS.
same indulgence, and are obliged to eat the flesh of swine, and to abstain from the rite of circumcision. The flesh of the cow is the only article of food prohibited to the Sikhs: and on this head their prejudices are almost stronger than those of the Hindus. Smoking is also prohibited, but there is no restriction upon the use of bhang, opium, or spirituous liquor, and drunkenness, from one source or other, is a common vice. Nor is this the only one to which the Sikhs are addicted. The verses of Nának and his fellow moralists inculcate a pure code of ethics, but this is a portion of his reform to which no reverence is paid; and no race in India is more flagrantly demoralized than the Lions of the Panjáb.
We do not derive from the travellers in the Panjáb any description of the public or private worship of the Sikhs, who are probably more jealous in their own country of admitting strangers to be present at their ceremonies than they are in other parts of India*. Although several persons have been admitted into the city of Amritsar, it is only recently that it was allowable or safe to visit the sacred tank and temples in its vicinity. The only description that has yet been published is to be found in the Travels of Baron Hügel. According to him, the tank is about 150 paces square, and apparently fed by a natural spring. It is surrounded by a pavement 20 or 25 paces in breadth, skirted by houses on one side, and having several
* [See, however, "Das Ausland", 1861, p. 1165.]
