ing in 1803, and apparently
expressing the opinion of George Thomas, declares that 'the Seiks are
false, sanguinary, and faithless; they are addicted to plunder and
the acquirement of wealth by any means, however nefarious'.
(_Military Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas, London reprint_, p. 112.)
The Sikh states of the Panjab are now sufficiently well governed.

22. I know of no authority for the name Charat (Churut), which seems
to be a blunder for Satrughna. The sons of Dasaratha were Rama, by
the chief queen; Bharat, by a second; and Lachhman (Lakshmana), and
Satrughna by a third consort.

23. The species referred to is the long-tailed monkey called
'Hanuman', and 'langur' in Hindi, the _Presbytis entellus_ of Jerdon
(=_P. anchises_, Elliot; = _Semnopithecus_, Cuvier).

24. The author seems to have forgotten that he has already told this
story, _ante_, this chapter following [8] in the text.

25. It is in the Mathura district. The town of Mathura (Muttra)
became the head-quarters of a separate District in 1832. The official
at Govardhan in 1836 must, therefore, have been subordinate to
Mathura, not to Agra.

CHAPTER 57

Veracity.

The people of Britain are described by Diodorus Siculus (Book V,
chap. 2) as in a very simple and rude state, subsisting almost
entirely on the produce of the land, but as being 'a people of much
integrity and sincerity, far from the craft and knavery of men among
us, contented with plain and homely fare, and strangers to the
luxuries and excesses of the rich'. In India we find strict veracity
most prevalent among the wildest and half-savage tribes of the hills
and jungles in Central India, or the chain of the Himalaya mountains;
and among those where we find it prevail most, we find cattle-
stealing most common; the men of one tribe not deeming it to be any
disgrace to _lift_, or steal, the cattle of another. I have known the
man among the Gonds of the woods of Central India, whom nothing could
induce to tell a lie, join a party of robbers to lift a herd of
cattle from the neighbouring plains for nothing more than as much
spirits as he could enjoy at one bout. I asked a native gentleman of
the plains, in the valley of the Nerbudda, one day, what made the
people of the woods to the north and south more disposed to speak the
truth than those more civilized of the valley itself. 'They have not
yet learned the value of a lie,' said he, with the greatest
simplicity and sincerity, fo