ngers of further pollution. When the
Brahmanical power was at its zenith, such acts as deceiving, robbing and
even killing this wretch were encouraged, as he was beyond the pale of
the laws. Now, at all events, he is free from the latter danger, but
still, even now, if he happens to die before he is forgiven and received
back into his caste, his body may not be burned, and no purifying
mantrams will be chanted for him; he will be thrown into the water, or
left to rot under the bushes like a dead cat.

This is a passive force, and its passiveness only makes it more
formidable. Western education and English influence can do nothing
to change it. There exists only one course of action for the
excommunicated; he must show signs of repentance and submit to all kinds
of humiliations, often to the total loss of all his worldly possessions.
Personally, I know several young Brahmans, who, having brilliantly
passed the university examinations in England, have had to submit to the
most repulsive conditions of purification on their return home; these
purifications consisting chiefly in shaving off half their moustaches
and eyebrows, crawling in the dust round pagodas, clinging during
long hours to the tail of a sacred cow, and, finally, swallowing the
excrements of this cow. The latter ceremony is called "Pancha-Gavya,"
literally, the five products of the cow: milk, curds, butter, etc.
The voyage over Kalapani, the black water, that is to say the sea, is
considered the worst of all the sins. A man who commits it is considered
as polluting himself continually, from the first moment of his going on
board the bellati (foreign) ship.

Only a few days ago a friend of ours, who is an LL.D., had to
undergo this "purgation," and it nearly cost him his reason. When we
remonstrated with him, pointing out that in his case it was simply
foolish to submit, he being a materialist by conviction and not caring
a straw for Brahmanism, he replied that he was bound to do so for the
following reasons:

"I have two daughters," he explained, "one five, the other six years
old. If I do not find a husband for the eldest of them in the course of
the coming year, she will grow too old to get married, nobody will think
of espousing her. Suppose I suffer my caste to excommunicate me, both
my girls will be dishonored and miserable for the rest of their lives.
Then, again, I must take into consideration the superstitions of my old
mother. If such a misfortun