buyer and seller soon
came to an understanding; and the provinces which had been torn from the
Mogul were made over to the government of Oude for about half a million
sterling.

But there was another matter still more important to be settled by the
Vizier and the Governor. The fate of a brave people was to be decided.
It was decided in a manner which has left a lasting stain on the fame of
Hastings and of England.

The people of Central Asia had always been to the inhabitants of India
what the warriors of the German forests were to the subjects of the
decaying monarchy of Rome. The dark, slender, and timid Hindoo shrank
from a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair
race, which dwelt beyond the passes. There is reason to believe that, at
a period anterior to the dawn of regular history, the people who spoke
the rich and flexible Sanskrit came from regions lying far beyond the
Hyphasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed their yoke on the children of
the soil. It is certain that, during the last ten centuries, a
succession of invaders descended from the west on Hindostan; nor was the
course of conquest ever turned back towards the setting sun, till that
memorable campaign in which the cross of St. George was planted on the
walls of Ghizni.

The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from the other side of the
great mountain ridge; and it had always been their practice to recruit
their army from the hardy and valiant race from which their own
illustrious house sprang. Among the military adventurers who were
allured to the Mogul standards from the neighborhood of Cabul and
Candahar were conspicuous several gallant bands, known by the name of
the Rohillas. Their services had been rewarded with large tracts of
land, fiefs of the spear, if we may use an expression drawn from an
analogous state of things, in that fertile plain through which the
Ramgunga flows from the snowy heights of Kumaon to join the Ganges. In
the general confusion which followed the death of Aurungzebe, the
warlike colony became virtually independent. The Rohillas were
distinguished from the other inhabitants of India by a peculiarly fair
complexion. They were more honorably distinguished by courage in war,
and by skill in the arts of peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to
Cape Comorin, their little territory enjoyed the blessings of repose
under the guardianship of valor. Agriculture and commerce nourished
among them; nor were t