=The Tribal System.=—The leading features of government amongst semi-barbarous hordes or civilized independent tribes must have a considerable resemblance to each other. In the same stages of society, the wants of men must everywhere be similar, and will produce the analogies which are observed to regulate Tatar hordes or German tribes, Caledonian clans, the Rajput Kula (race), or Jareja Bhayyad (brotherhood). All the countries of Europe participated in the system we denominate feudal; and we can observe it, in various degrees of perfection or deterioration, from the mountains of Caucasus to the Indian Ocean. But it requires a persevering toil, and more discriminating judgement than I possess, to recover all these relics of civilization: yet though time, and still more oppression, have veiled the ancient institutions of Mewar, the mystery may be penetrated, and will discover parts of a system worthy of being rescued from oblivion. =Influence of Muhammadans and Mahrattas.=—Mahratta cunning, engrafted on Muhammadan intolerance, had greatly obscured these institutions. The nation itself was passing rapidly away: the remnant which was left had become a matter of calculation, and their records and their laws partook of this general decay. The nation may recover; the physical frame may be renewed; but the _morale_ of the society must be recast. In this chaos a casual observer sees nothing to attract notice; the theory of government appears, without any of the dignity which now marks our regular system. Whatever does exist is attributed to fortuitous causes—to nothing systematic: no fixed principle is discerned, and none is admitted; it is deemed a mechanism without a plan. This opinion is hasty. Attention to distinctions, though often merely nominal [131], will aid us in discovering the outlines of a picture which must at some period have been more finished; when real power, unrestrained by foreign influence, upheld a system, the plan of which was original. It is in these remote regions, so little known to the Western world, and where original manners lie hidden under those of the conquerors, that we may search for the germs of the constitutions of European States.[3.1.3] A contempt for all that is Asiatic too often marks our countrymen in the East: though at one period on record the taunt might have been reversed.