dealings with Mohammedans.

Thus Meer Sulamut Ali, a venerable old Mussulman, and, as Colonel
Sleeman says, a most valuable public servant, was obliged to admit
that "a Hindu may feel himself authorized to take in a Mussulman, and
might even think it meritorious to do so; but he would never think it
meritorious to take in one of his own religion. There are no less than
seventy-two sects of Mohammedans; and every one of these sects would
not only take in the followers of every other religion on earth, but
every member of every one of the other seventy-one sects; and the
nearer that sect is to his own, the greater the merit of taking in its
members."[52]

So I could go on quoting from book after book, and again and again we
should see how it was love of truth that struck all the people who
came in contact with India, as the prominent feature in the national
character of its inhabitants. No one ever accused them of falsehood.
There must surely be some ground for this, for it is not a remark that
is frequently made by travellers in foreign countries, even in our
time, that their inhabitants invariably speak the truth. Read the
accounts of English travellers in France, and you will find very
little said about French honesty and veracity, while French accounts
of England are seldom without a fling at _Perfide Albion_!

But if all this is true, how is it, you may well ask, that public
opinion in England is so decidedly unfriendly to the people of India;
at the utmost tolerates and patronizes them, but will never trust
them, never treat them on terms of equality?

I have already hinted at some of the reasons. Public opinion with
regard to India is made up in England chiefly by those who have spent
their lives in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, or some other of the
principal towns in India. The native element in such towns contains
mostly the most unfavorable specimens of the Indian population. An
insight into the domestic life of the more respectable classes, even
in towns, is difficult to obtain; and, when it is obtained, it is
extremely difficult to judge of their manners according to our
standard of what is proper, respectable, or gentlemanlike. The
misunderstandings are frequent and often most grotesque; and such, we
must confess, is human nature, that when we hear the different and
often most conflicting accounts of the character of the Hindus, we are
naturally skeptical with regard to unsuspected virtues among them,
while