s born in October 1779, and joined
the Bengal service in 1795, some three years before the
arrival in India of Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquess
Wellesley. He continued in the Indian service till 1829, and
was offered but refused the Governor Generalship. The last
thirty years of his life he passed in comparative retirement
in England, and died in November, 1859, at Hook Wood. He was
one of the particularly brilliant group of British
administrators in India in the first quarter of the last
century. Like his colleagues, Munro and Malcolm, he was a keen
student of Indian History. And although some of his views
require to be modified in the light of more recent enquiry,
his "History of India" published in 1841 is still the standard
authority from the earliest times to the establishment of the
British as a territorial power.

_I.--The Hindus_

India is crossed from East to West by a chain of mountains called the
Vindhyas. The country to the North of this chain is now called Hindustan
and that to the South of it the Deckan. Hindustan is in four natural
divisions; the valley of the Indus including the Panjab, the basin of
the Ganges, Rajputana and Central India. Neither Bengal nor Guzerat is
included in Hindustan power. The rainy season lasts from June to October
while the South West wind called the Monsoon is blowing.

Every Hindu history must begin with the code of Menu which was probably
drawn up in the 9th century B.C. In the society described, the first
feature that strikes us is the division into four castes--the
sacerdotal, the military, the industrial, and the servile. The Bramin is
above all others even kings. In theory he is excluded from the world
during three parts of his life. In practice he is the instructor of
kings, the interpreter of the military class; the king, his ministers,
and the soldiers. Third are the Veisyas who conduct all agricultural and
industrial operations; and fourth the Sudras who are outside the pale.

The king stands at the head of the Government with a Bramin for chief
Counsellor. Elaborate rules and regulations are laid down in the code as
to administration, taxation, foreign policy, and war. Land perhaps but
not certainly was generally held in common by village communities.

The king himself administers justice or deputes that work to Bramins.
The criminal code is extremely rude; no proportion is observed b