with his calfless legs bared to the knee and feet shod in
sandals, he looks a queer cousin of Fifth Avenue's "Finest" and of the
"Bobby" of London. A person unaccustomed to the habits of subject races
gets the idea that the Bombay constable's first duty is the touching of
his cap to white men, all and sundry; but it is said to his credit that
in a street brawl or a water front quarrel among drunken lascars he
fights like a wildcat. He is extremely proud of his truncheon, for it is
a badge of office tremendously respected in the city's labyrinths where
India's heterogeneous peoples dwell a dozen or more in a room. During
the wet monsoon the policeman of Bombay carries an umbrella supplied by
the municipality, which heightens his comical aspect--but it keeps him
dry.

[Illustration: BOMBAY POLICEMAN]

The markings and badges of caste observed in Bombay streets lead you to
a constant interrogation of your sources of information. At the outset
you determine to obtain an understanding of the institution of Indian
caste, but a fortnight after your arrival in Bombay you conclude that
the task is too great for anybody having other things to do, and give it
up in despair. A few facts connected with this supreme and dominating
characteristic take root in your memory, however, and you have learned
that the customs and rites of caste could not be strengthened even by
legal enactments, or by the massed strength of all the armies on earth.
The word is derived from the Latin word _castus_, implying purity of
blood, and whose essential principle is marriage. India's population
groups forty-seven nationalities, divided into 2,378 recognized castes
and tribes. Accident of birth determines irrevocably a native's
social and domestic relationship, prescribing even what he may eat
and drink throughout life, how he must dress, and whom he may marry.
There are four fundamental divisions of caste--the priestly or Brahmin
(which has close upon fifteen million devotees), the warrior, the
trading, and the laboring; and these have interminable subdivisions.
Below the laboring caste there is a substratum which is termed pariah or
outcast, and these degraded specimens of humanity are not better than
animated machines performing the functions of public scavengers.

Throughout India caste is hereditary. The son of a priest becomes a
priest, a warrior's son becomes a soldier, and a carpenter's boy a
carpenter, and so on. For a father to start a son in