_Segur_, to
prepare for my Russian campaign.

_January_ 28.--Continued my reading with the commentary of the D. of
W.[456] If his broad shoulders cannot carry me through, the devil must
be in the dice. Longman and Company agree to the eight volumes. It will
make the value of the book more than L12,000. Wrought indifferent hard.

_January_ 29.--Mr. Gibson breakfasted with Dr. Marshman,[457] the head
of the missionaries at Serampore, a great Oriental scholar. He is a
thin, dark-featured, middle-sized man, about fifty or upwards, his eye
acute, his hair just beginning to have a touch of the grey. He spoke
well and sensibly, and seemed liberal in his ideas. He was clearly of
opinion that general information must go hand in hand, or even ought to
precede religious instruction. Thinks the influence of European manners
is gradually making changes in India. The natives, so far as their
religion will allow them, are become fond of Europeans, and invite them
to their great festivals. He has a conceit that the Afghans are the
remains of the Ten Tribes. I cannot find he has a better reason than
their own tradition, which calls them Ben-Israel, and says they are not
Ben-Judah. They have Jewish rites and ceremonies, but so have all
Mahometans; neither could I understand that their language has anything
peculiar. The worship of Bhoodah he conceives to have [been] an
original, or rather the original, of Hindu religion, until the Brahmins
introduced the doctrines respecting caste and other peculiarities. But
it would require strong proof to show that the superstition of caste
could be introduced into a country which had been long peopled, and
where society had long existed without such restriction. It is more like
to be adopted in the early history of a tribe, when there are but few
individuals, the descent of whom is accurately preserved. How could the
castes be distinguished or _told off_ in a populous nation? Dr. Marshman
was an old friend of poor John Leyden.

_January_ 30.--Blank day at Court, being the Martyrdom. Wrought hard at
_Bon._ all day, though I had settled otherwise. I ought to have been at
an article for John Lockhart, and one for poor Gillies; but there is
something irresistible in contradiction, even when it consists in doing
a thing equally laborious, but not the thing you are especially called
upon to do. It is a kind of cheating the devil, which a self-willed
monster like me is particularly addicted to. Not to ma