“The dwelling of Chandals[2] and Swapacas[2] should be outside the village; their clothes should be the garments of the dead, and their food should be in broken dishes.” These are only a few out of many, and some of the laws are too cruel to quote here. Yet though all that is written in the old law of India, men have often risen there, who tried to break through the rules of caste, and there are other ancient writings that show that all Hindus have not believed in these differences between man and man. “Small souls inquire, ‘Belongs this man To our own race, or class, or clan?’ But larger-hearted men embrace As brothers all the human race.” But those who have held that caste law is not binding have never been able to break the power the priests held over the great masses of the people, and so caste law and not the brotherhood of man still rules. In many parts of India a boy cannot choose what trade he will follow. If his father belongs to the carpenter caste, he must be a carpenter; if his father is a sweeper, he must be a sweeper; if his father is a robber, he will be a robber. In one place in the far north, when a little boy is born his mother swings him backwards and forwards over a hole in the wall and says to him:-- “Be a thief! be a thief!” There are castes of robbers and murderers still in India. The caste of the Thugs was the most famous one of them all, but now the British Government has taken under its control all those who still belong to it. They are kept in ground set apart for them, and none of them are allowed to go out to kill or to steal. Yet pilgrims still crowd to the beautiful marble tomb of the man who founded the caste of the Thugs two hundred and fifty years ago. He is one of the saints of India, and the priests who guard his shrine cover the tomb with beautiful cashmere shawls, and lay fresh flowers on it morning by morning. CHAPTER V THE STORY OF FATE When a baby is born in India the lines between the bones of its skull can be traced just as they can be traced in a fair-skinned child. The mother of a white baby does not notice them much, but they mean a great deal to an Indian mother, for an ancient story is told about them.