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and building their walls with a zeal and a pertinacity of purpose and visible results, that are almost equal to the observable decay of the system as it is popularly believed to exist, in India. I will conclude my observations on this point by quoting a paragraph or two from a very high authority in Her Majesty's India Civil Service and an Honorary Secretary to the Royal Society-Mr. Robert Needham Cust: *
"How has society dealt with caste ? I can only give an opinion based upon experience acquired in a solitary life among the peopie of Upper India for weeks and months together without any European companion. I never found caste an obstacle to social intercourse, nor did the subject ever press itself forward, and yet the population of the villages and towns visited each day, differed considerably. Few villages were absolutely without Mahonedan, none without men of the lowest caste, and in the thronging of an Indian crowd there must be indiscriminate contact. In my establishment there was the Brahmin, with whom I transacted ordinary business, the Rajput, who carried my messages, the Khatri and Kayat, who engrossed my orders. Mabomedan and Hindu sat upon the floor working side by side, in constant contact, and handed papers from one to the other; and, if the half caste Christian sat at a table to write English letters, it was only be
*"'Pictures of Indian Life,” R. N. Cust Scribner & Co.
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