Lehal Library

! CHAP. I THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE 13 others, are not inferior to the Jats in laboriousness The Rains and sobriety, although they are so in enterprise and ^^'^ some resolution. The Rajputs are always brave men, °l^^^, The i^erior as and they form, too, a desirable peasantry. Gujars everywhere prefer pasturage to the plough, tmers of the whether of the Hindu or Muhammadan faith, ground. The Baluchis do not become careful cultivators The peaeven when long settled in the plains, and the tribes sant Rajputs, adjoining the hills are of a disposition turbulent and '^^ Gujars predatory. They mostly devote themselves to the rea.- peopie°^^^ ing of camels, and they traverse Upper India in charge ^^'^of herds of that useful animal. The Afghans are good '^.^ have been peace when they accustomed to husbandmen j.^^ ^^^ in the plains of India, or when they feel secure in their predatory, own valleys, but they are even of a more turbulent r^j^g ^f. character than the Baluchis, and they are everywhere ghans into be met with as mercenary soldiers. Both races are, in dustrious, truth, in their own country little better than free- ^^t turbu^^^^' booters, and the Muhammadan faith has mainly helped and against unbelievers, them to justify their excesses to keep them together under a common banner for purposes of defence or aggression. The Kshattriya and The KshatAroras of the cities and towns are enterprising as mer- ^^^^^ ^"*^ chants and frugal as tradesmen. They are the principal ^nt^e^j-p^risfinanciers and accountants of the country; but the ing but ancient military spirit frequently reappears amongst frugal, the once royal 'Kshattriya', and they become able governors of provinces and skilful leaders of armies.^ The '^^^. ^fjjj" mdustry and mechanical skill of the stout-limbed pro- ^^^ ^^^^ lific Kashmiris are as well known as their poverty, their tame and tameness of spirit, and their loose morality. The people spiritless. 1 Hari Singh, a Sikh, and the most enterprising of Ranjit Singh's generals, was a Kshattriya; and the best of his governors, Mohkam Chand and Sawan Mai, were of the same race. The learning of Bolu Mai, a Khanna Kshattriya, and a follower of the Sikh chief of Ahluwalia, excites some little jealousy among the Brahmans of Lahore and of the JuUundur Doab; and Chandu Lai, who so long managed the affairs of the NizEun of Hyderabad, was a Khattri of Northern India, and greatly encouraged the Sikh mercenajies in that principality, in opposition to the Arabs and Afghans. The declension of the Kshattriya from soldiers and sovereigns into traders and shopkeepers, has a parallel in the history of the Jews. Men of active minds will always find emplojonent for themselves, and thus we know what Greeks became under the victorious Romans, and what they are under the ruling Turks. We likewise know that the vanquished Moors were the most industrious of the subjects of mediaeval Spain; that the Mughals of British India are gradually applying themselves to the business of exchange, and it is plain that the traffickers as well as the priests of Saxon England, Frankish Gaul, and Gothic Italy must have been chiefly of Roman descent.