any calling but his
own, or a vocation that is similar, would be "against his caste." Caste
is social as well as religious, and includes the occupation as well as
the creed. For a Hindu to rise from his inherited caste is next to
impossible, and this tends to make the Hindus an ambitionless race. The
infusion of new blood is likewise not tolerated, and in India "caste"
and "custom" are perfect synonyms--and each a national curse.

A major part of the people of India are agriculturists, men and women
who are dependent upon what they can wrest from the soil for their
existence. Their plough, an heirloom from remote antiquity, merely
scratches the earth. The use of superior implements would result in
superior tillage and augmented crops; but it would be as simple to
induce the peasant to change his religion as to get him to forsake the
plough used by his ancestors. The implements of daily life mostly belong
to the barbarous ages. Attempt to introduce any other and you are
rebuked by the reply: "It is not the custom; my father used this
article, and therefore it is my duty to use it. Would you have me set
myself up for a wiser person than my revered parent?" The toiling
masses, consequently, are poor--and seem destined to remain poor until
the close of the chapter.

I heard of a contractor engaged in building a railway who objected to
the physical toil and slowness of having a bank of earth removed by
baskets on the heads of coolies. So he invested in a number of
wheelbarrows and explained their use to the natives, and went back to
his Bombay office flattering himself that he was a reformer. The next
week when he visited the scene of operations he found the barrows in
use, but the coolies were filling them with dirt and carrying them up
the bank on their heads as they had always carried their baskets. The
coolie of Hind is not to be beguiled by any demonstration intended to
lighten his task, for he is crusted with conservatism and prejudice.

In Bombay I engaged a man-servant to accompany me on a trip to the
Punjab. It being a winter of unusual severity, and the journey involving
much night travel, the agent from whom I hired the servant advised me
that it would be a beneficial as well as a humane act were I to give the
man ten rupees with which to procure an "outfit" suitable for one going
to the north. "It's sometimes done, but not often enough to make it a
custom," explained the agent; "but it would be the right thing