, a
six-months' supply of Ganges water, etc., he might take enough of
India with him to make the trip in safety, and he went. Now many are
going without any such precautions, and a moderate fee paid to the
priests usually enables them to resume caste relations upon their
return.

Sometimes, however, the penalties are heavier. A Hindu merchant of
Amritsar, who grew very friendly with a Delhi friend of mine on a
voyage from Europe, said just before reaching Bombay: "Well, I shall
have to pay for all this when I get home, and I shall be lucky if I
get off without making a pilgrimage to all the twelve sacred places of
our religion. And in any case I shall never let my wife know that I
have broken caste by eating with foreigners." My impression is,
however, that only in a very few cases now is the crime of foreign
travel punished so severely. In Madras I met one of the most eminent
Hindu leaders, Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer. "Caste has kept me from going
abroad until now," he told me, "but I have made up my mind to let it
interfere no longer. Just as soon as business permits, I shall go to
Europe and possibly to America."

Christianity is another mightily effective foe of Caste. As in the
olden days, it exalts the lowly and humbles the proud. In Muttra I
found a converted high-caste Brahmin acting as sexton of a Christian
church whose members are sweepers--outcast folk whom as a Hindu he
would have scorned to touch. On the other hand, the acceptance of
Christianity frees a man from the restrictions imposed upon a low
caste, even though it does not give him the privileges of a higher
caste and thus often wins for the Christianized Hindu higher regard
from all classes. Thus there was in Moradabadad some years ago the son
of a poor sweeper who became a Christian, and was a youth of such fine
promise that a way was {235} found for him to attend Oxford
University. Returning, he became a teacher in Moradabadad Mission
School and won such golden opinions from his townspeople that when he
died the whole city--Hindus, Mohammedans and Christians alike--stopped
for his funeral.

In its present elaborate form the caste system is undoubtedly doomed.
It is too purely artificial to endure after the people acquire even a
modicum of education. Perhaps it was planned originally as a means of
preserving the racial integrity and political superiority of the Aryan
invaders, but for unnumbered centuries it has been simply a gigantic
engine of oppr