In some parts of India those who belong to different castes are as far apart from each other as if the lower caste men were not human beings at all, and a high caste man will not touch a low caste one even to save his life. The Brahmans are treated almost as if they were gods. Many of them live by the gifts of the people, so they do everything they can to strengthen the old customs and beliefs that make the other Hindus worship them. They have strange ways of keeping their power. If a Brahman is angry with anyone he will go and sit on his enemy’s doorstep day and night without tasting food or drinking water. Even if the villager does not give in at once, he soon does, because he knows that the Brahman will rather starve to death than leave his door, unless he gets his way, and the poor man thinks of all that may happen to him after death if he allows a priest to die of hunger on his doorstep. He thinks he may go to one of the places of punishment beyond the world, and after hundreds of years come back to earth as a worm or a fly, and so he does what the priest bids him, however hard it is. [Illustration: FAKIRS] It is caste law that tells Hindu children what sin is, and many of its rules are about eating and bathing. No one may eat food with anyone of a lower caste. No one may marry anyone of a different caste. No one may change his religion. There are many rules about what the people of each caste may eat, and how their food must be cooked. Many of the laws of caste speak of the honour that must be paid to Brahmans, and of the punishments anyone who does not reverence them may suffer. Some of these punishments are so cruel that the government would interfere if anyone tried to enforce them now, but the fear of the pain that may come after death is strong enough to keep very many Hindus still in constant fear of the Brahmans, even though they cannot be punished so brutally in this life as they once might have been. Here are some sentences from the laws about caste. “The Brahman is by right the lord of all this creation.” “What being is there superior to him by whose mouth the gods eat oblations?” “When the Brahman is born he is born above the world, the chief of all creatures, to guard the treasures of religion.” “Thus whatever exists in the universe is all the property of the Brahman.” “No greater wrong is found on earth than killing a Brahman.” “Certainly the king should not slay a Brahman, even if he be occupied in crime of every sort.” “A Brahman may take possession of the goods of the Sudra[1] with perfect ease of mind, for, since nothing at all belongs to this Sudra, as his own, he is one whose property may be taken away by his master. The leavings of food should be given to him, and the old clothes.” “If a man of low birth assault one of the twice-born castes with violent words he ought to have his tongue cut out.” “If he lift up his hand or his staff against him he ought to have his head cut off.”