as done for good or evil. It shall be my endeavour to solve
that question; and I imagine the solution would be in a great measure
effected if I could, in the first instance, answer the following
questions:

1. How far has caste acted as a moral restraint amongst the Indians
themselves?

2. How far advantageously or the reverse in segregating them socially from
the conquerors who have overrun their country?

On the first of these points I may observe, without the slightest
exaggeration, that very few of our countrymen indeed have had such
opportunities as myself of forming a correct opinion; for very few
Englishmen have been so entirely dependent on a native population for
society. For the first four or five years of my residence in
Manjarabad[31] there were only three Europeans besides myself, and we were
all about twelve miles apart. The natural consequence was that the farmers
of the country were my sole companions; and, as I joined in their sports
and had some of them always about me, terms of intimacy sprang up which
never could have existed under any other circumstances. And further, when
it is taken into consideration that I have employed the poorer of the
better castes in various capacities on my estates, and a large number of
the Pariahs, or labourer caste, it seems pretty clear that I ought to be a
tolerably competent judge as to whether caste did or did not exercise a
favourable influence on the morals of the people. Now, as regards one
department of morals, at least, I unhesitatingly affirm that it did, and
that, as regards the connection of the sexes, it would be difficult to
find in any part of the world a more moral people than the two higher
castes of Manjarabad, who form about one-half of the population, and who
may be termed the farming proprietors of the country. Amongst themselves,
indeed, it was not to be wondered at that their morality was extremely
good, as, from the fact of nearly everyone being married at the age of
puberty, and partly, perhaps, from the fact of their houses being more or
less isolated, instead of being grouped in villages, the temptations to
immorality were necessarily slight. Their temptations, though, as regards
the Pariahs, who were, when I entered Manjarabad, merely hereditary serfs,
were considerable; and there it was that the value of caste law came in.
Caste said, "You shall not touch these women;" and so strong was this law,
that I never knew of but one instance of one